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Melissa Petro (PICTURES): Parents React to NY Teacher's Prostitute Past

Melissa Petro (PICTURES): Parents React To NY Teacher's Prostitute Past
Melissa Petro (Personal Photo) Personal Photo

NEW YORK (CBS/WCBS) Melissa Petro, a teacher at a public New York City elementary school, is on administrative duty after writing online about her life as a prostitute and a stripper.

PICTURES: Melissa Petro, Teacher Sex Worker

That history is news to most parents.

"That's just wild, I'm really speechless," Dahoo Key told CBS affiliate WCBS.

"Wow, I can't even begin to say, I mean it's pretty bad for her," Amancio Delgado told the station. "You don't know what goes on in a person's life, but she is a school teacher."

The Department of Education said Petro was hired in August of 2007, makes more than $60,000 per year and has tenure. Months before she was hired, Petro was listed on a website as a presenter at a sex workers' conference.

Teachers reacted with differing opinions to the news of Petro's previous lifestyle.

"The kids love her and she knows art and they've learned a lot from her," teacher Bess Metcalf said.

"When you're a teacher, you're a role model for these kids. You have to set a good example," teacher Howard Titlebaum said.

The 30 year old, in an article published on The Huffington Post earlier this month, criticized Craigslist for shutting down its adult services sections noting that she herself used the web site from Oct. 2006 to Jan. 2007 to run ads exchanging sex for cash. She also wrote that she found the lifestyle physically demanding and emotionally taxing.

Additionally, a video posted online shows Petro reading an anthology describing her experience working as a stripper in Mexico when she was 19. "I did it for the money but it was also true that I enjoyed it," Petro said in the video. She also compares her teaching career to having sex with her boyfriend.

"It's fun and it's especially fun in the beginning," she says in the video. "And then it's over and then you gotta do it again and again and again."

Petro has been teaching art to students, from kindergarten through the fifth grade, at PS 70 for the last three years.

The Department of Education said the case has been referred to the head of the Office of Special Investigations, Richard Condon.

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