PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said a woman is under arrest after she repeatedly punched a girl in the face for getting the answers to her homework wrong.
Margaret Gissome, 35, was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail at approximately 5:30 p.m. Thursday on a felony charge of child abuse.
According to Gissome's arrest report, a child told a Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office detective sergeant, along with a Florida Department of Children and Families investigator, that she was doing her homework with her siblings in Gissome's bedroom on Wednesday, when Gissome "became upset" because the girl was "giving [Gissome] the wrong answer to her homework."
Gissome grabbed the girl by the shirt collar and "started shaking her," then hit her in the face with a "closed fist," the arrest report stated.
Shortly after, Gissome hit the girl in the mouth "for getting another wrong answer," the report said.
The girl told investigators that Gissome told her "'not to worry about your lip because your nose will be next,'" then punched her in the chest.
The child, whose age and relationship to Gissome have not been released, suffered a "busted blood vessel in her left eye," along with redness and swelling under her right eye, and a "bruise on her lower lip," the arrest report said.
According to her arrest report, Gissome works in "occupational care" and was referred to as "Miss" by the girl.
In court Friday, a judge set Gissome's bond at $2,500 and ordered her to have no contact with the girl, as well as no contact with minor children unless their parents are aware of the child abuse charge.
