Parents at New York private school call suicide note assignment ‘inappropriate’
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Young teens at a pricey private school on New York City's Upper West Side were asked to write first-person suicide notes — a macabre assignment that some of their parents have blasted as "inappropriate."
The English-class homework at York Prep required students as young as 14 to write goodbye missives from the perspective of a character who offs herself in “The Secret Life of Bees,” a best-selling book and film.
The task included justifying why they had committed suicide, a grim process that rattled a few nerves.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"We were pretty stunned at the scope of the assignment," said a father of a ninth-grade student at the school. "We thought this was such an outrageous assignment for a 14-year-old to get."
Tuition for high schoolers at the grade 6-to-12 institution on West 68th Street is slated to be $41,200 for the coming school year.
Newbie English teacher Jessica Barrish's assignment last month focused on having kids channel fictitious character May Boatwright by writing in first person — as if they were her — about her legacy and how they wanted to be remembered by her sisters.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"How would you justify ending your life? What reasons would you give?" the project asked.
Barrish, who previously taught for three years in the public schools, declined to comment.