Class sends handmade holiday cards to prisoner

[Renew Deal]

A fifth-grade class from Queens sent homemade holiday cards to a surprising pen pal -- their teacher’s jailbird boyfriend.

Melissa Dean made her students at Public School 143 in Corona draw Christmas cards for her beau because she “thought it was a nice thing to do,” investigators said.

But a guard at Groveland Correctional Facility in Livingston disagreed, intercepting the package of 27 letters for John Coccarelli and alerting Dean’s principal.

“It was bad judgment,” said the city’s Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon. “She certainly did not have permission.”

Dean, 31, told her students that they were sending the crayon-drawn notes to people without families who were lonely during the holidays.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/class-sends-handmade-holiday-cards-prisoner-article-1.1023215

[southernyankeebelle]

1. This is over the line. Why don't they send cards to soldiers in hospitals. Or maybe

old people in nursing homes. This man shouldn't have done that.

[boppers]

2. "Dean, who draws a yearly salary of $75,283"....

I'm in the wrong profession.

[Neue Regel]

3. In theory, I support kids sending holiday cards to prisoners

My 5th or 6th (can't remember which, exactly) grade class did it. I went to a Catholic elementary school and one of the nuns would visit people in jails, hospitals, and hospices...you know, the weak, downtrodden, castoffs, sinners and the like. She would hand out our handmade cards to prisoners; I remember one prisoner who would draw pictures that we requested and give them to the nun to bring back to us. I think I requested a tiger driving an Indy-style race car, or something similarly ridiculous. At any rate, I'm sure the inmates enjoyed getting something to break up the monotony of jail life (this was late 70's early 80's, pre-internet and cable TV).

The problem here seems to be in the project's execution. From the article:

She did not get permission from the school or kids’ parents to send the cards -- some of which contained the students’ names and home addresses .

Clearly there shouldn't have been anything beyond the kids' first names and maybe their last name initial, and she should have gotten permission for the project, but I don't see the inherent badness in school kids sending cards to people who may otherwise be forgotten around the holidays.

Maybe I'm just weird.