Thursday, February 16, 2012

Teacher Has 5th Graders Make Cards With Addresses for Inmate With History Of Possessing Child Porn

By Susan Duclos

Some things are wrong on so many levels it defies the ability to list them all.

A New York teacher, Melissa Dean, instructed her 11 yr-old, 5th grade students, at Public School 143 in Corona to create cards with the students names and addresses included on the cards, then Dean took those 25 cards and sent them to a a convicted prison inmate by the name of John Coccarelli who is allegedly a friend of Deans.

First, Dean did not have permission from the school to send the cards to a convicted felon.

Second, Dean did not have permission from the children's parents to send the cards with personal information in said cards, to a convicted felon.

Third, while Coccarelli is in jail for possession of a loaded 9-mm semiautomatic pistol and violating an order of protection, according to a CBS News article that is the plea Coccarelli copped to, but in 2008, he was busted in Nassau County for weapons possession and child porn after police found a disk and laptop with nearly 50 sexually explicit images of underage kids.

Fourth, the only reason those cards with the children's personal information on them, did not reach Coccarelli is because prison officials intercepted them. Had they not been intercepted, the Department of Education, nor the children's parents would have ever known that their kids' personal information was in the hands of a felon with a history of possessing child pornography.

Then we get to the fifth thing on the list of outrages, while the Department of Education is seeking her termination, she is still on the payroll, having been reassigned to an office in Long Island City. Dean has taught in the city since 2004 and makes $75,000 a year.

Read the 8-page investigative report, sent to Hon. Dennis M. Walcott, Chancellor, New York City Public Schools, Department of Education, after interviewing some of the children involved.



H/T Howard Portnoy at Hot Air Green Room

Sources- CBS News and CBS New York.

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