PARK SLOPE — A parent volunteer chaperoning a choral concert at M.S. 51 slapped a student in the face on Friday night — and the school did not call authorities, according to the victim's mother.
Petal Joseph, whose 13-year-old daughter is a seventh-grader at the school, said she's outraged at how school officials dragged their feet in responding to the incident. Detectives are now investigating it as an assault, an NYPD spokesman said.
“We have never hit our child and for someone to feel that they can hit my child is unacceptable,” Joseph said, adding that her daughter suffered an abrasion and swelling around her mouth.
“It was horrible the way it was handled. If you know someone’s been assaulted, you contact the authorities.”
M.S. 51 officials did not respond immediately to requests for comment. The Department of Education is looking into the alleged assault, a spokesman said.
The incident unfolded on the evening of May 15, when Joseph's daughter — whose name is being withheld at her mother's request — was performing in a choral concert at the middle school. The teen was in a classroom with other students waiting for her turn on stage when Roberta Woelfling, a parent volunteering to supervise the students, approached them and told them to keep quiet.
"I went to stop the antics and quiet them down," Woelfling told DNAinfo New York on Tuesday, adding that she never intended to make physical contact with the teen.
While Woelfling was talking to the students, Joseph's daughter "stood there and pushed her tongue out through her gum and stood there like that with a sort of defiant look on her face," Woefling wrote in an earlier statement for the school obtained by DNAinfo. "I turned to her and said that it was very disrespectful to do that when someone was speaking to you and asked her to pop it back in her mouth. I used [a] gestural flick with the back of my fingers as if I was popping a bubble."
“We were at close quarters so the back of my two fingers touched her face,” Woelfling told DNAinfo.
“It wasn’t intentional. Unfortunately two fingers touched her face and they’re saying I hit a child,” added Woefling, whose daughter was also performing in the concert that night. “I’m a parent too. None of us hit our children. It's not who I am. This is an accidental, unintentional occurrence. It’s unfortunate. It pains me. I’ve got a pit in my gut about it.”
Woelfling, who described herself as "the parent who volunteers for everything," said M.S. 51 was "desperate" for chaperones, in part because the job is a "tough gig" involving keeping excited teens quiet. "Nobody wants to volunteer to keep things calm in these classrooms," Woelfling said.
An assistant principal asked Woelfling to leave the classroom after the incident, she said.
Meanwhile, Joseph was in the audience watching the show. About half an hour later, her daughter returned to the stage for a second song. She looked sullen and appeared to have been crying, Joseph said. It was a stark contrast from her demeanor at the beginning of the concert, when the teen appeared happy and was smiling.
At the end of the concert, Joseph reunited with her daughter and noticed that she seemed upset. She asked what was wrong, and the child replied, "Did they tell you? A woman punched me in the face."
Joseph says a school safety officer who was standing nearby confirmed the incident, as did an assistant principal. The administrator took Joseph into an office and explained that Joseph's daughter had written a statement about the incident between her two performances. The administrator added that Woelfling had already left the building, but that she would email her statement to the school later.
On Saturday morning, Joseph awoke to find that her daughter had a "raised abrasion" on her mouth. She took photos and went to the 78th Precinct to report the incident.
On Monday morning, Joseph and her husband met with the school's principal, two assistant principals, and Woelfling. School administrators apologized for how the incident was handled — but still didn't refer the incident to police, Joseph said.
Joseph added that when she followed up with police, she was told that they visited the school and were told by officials there that it was only an "accident."
Joseph says her family "loves" M.S. 51 because it's a "great school with a great community," but the whole incident left her disappointed in the school.
“It just made no sense the way [the assistant principal] handled it," Joseph said. "She had to know better. If an adult violates a child on school premises, something has to happen. She should have called the authorities, she should have come to get me."
Joseph was particularly taken aback that Woelfling described her daughter as "defiant."
"I know my child,” Joseph said. “She is not defiant. She’s polite. She’s not rude. She doesn’t talk back. Every teacher I’ve spoken to has always told me my child was a great child.”
