Students of the Upper West Side private facility, some as young as age 14, were required to write the goodbye letter as an offshoot lesson plan from the best-selling book and movie, “The Secret Life of Bees,” The New York Post reported. The main character in that book killed herself.

The teacher told the students to include in their letters the rationale for their suicides — leaving at least a few of the kids rattled, and parents angered, The Post reported.