A Miami mom allegedly struck her eighth-grade son’s teacher and spat on the principal’s desk after being criticized for her parenting skills during a meeting about the boy’s issues with other students.
Palmetto Middle School principal Jesus Gonzalez asked Stephanie Armas, 34, to meet him, assistant principal Isamara Berrios and social studies teacher Mayade Ersoff on Feb. 14, the Miami Herald reported.
At the meeting, Ersoff told Armas that her son was acting up in class. The mother responded that the boy was likely reacting to being assaulted.
“You need to learn how to raise your child,” Ersoff said, according to the newspaper, which cited an arrest affidavit filed by Miami-Dade Schools Police.
The teacher’s statement reportedly set off the incensed woman, who “stood up, raised her right arm and struck [Ersoff] on the left shoulder,” according to the affidavit.
Gonzalez and Berrios intervened and had Ersoff leave the office through a back door — but as she left, Armas “picked up a picture frame from the desk and threw it against the back wall [and] spat on [Gonzalez’s] desk,” the affidavit states, according to the Herald.
Palmetto Middle School principal Jesus Gonzalez had a joint meeting with Stephanie Armas, an assistant principal and her son’s teacher to discuss his behavior. Palmetto Middle SchoolArmas was arrested the following day and charged with battery. She was reportedly booked into Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in west Miami-Dade and was released after posting a $1,500 bond.
She has pleaded not guilty and is due back in court on Tuesday.
The public school district has declined to comment on the incident, but in a statement said the school community, “including employees and visitors, is reminded to do its part by serving as positive role models for the students of this district and avoid disrupting the safe and positive learning environment that is expected at all of our schools.”
Armas’ attorney, Frank Quintero, told the Herald that the boy had reported to Ersoff, 59, of being “threatened in school” — but that the teacher didn’t report it to Gonzalez until a few days later.
Once the principal found out about the student’s account, he called a meeting with the mother, Quintero said.
Meanwhile, Ersoff emailed Armas about her son’s disruptive behavior in class, but did not mention the assault cited by the student, according to Quintero.
But Ersoff disputed the lawyer’s account, saying she reported the boy’s complaint “right away.”
“I called the assistant principal and said a student had been threatened verbally,” she said, adding that she emailed Armas about her son but omitted his report about being threatened because she felt it was the administrator’s responsibility to inform the parent about it.
Quintero also disputed the account of his client’s alleged actions.
He claimed that after Ersoff’s remarks about Armas’ parenting, the teacher “made a move toward my client” when Gonzalez told her to leave the room.
Armas felt threatened, “so she [swung] her purse to protect herself,” he said, though the affidavit does not mention a purse, according to the Herald.
Ersoff acknowledged in an interview with the paper that she told Armas to “raise her son properly” but denied making any motion toward her.
Stephanie Armas’ attorney alleged that Mayade Ersoff didn’t immediately report her son being “threatened in school.” Palmetto Middle School“I would never in the world think to hit someone, or a parent. It would never cross my mind,” Ersoff told the outlet. “I could have defended myself, but I didn’t.”







