PROVIDENCE -- Two Woonsocket mothers who were arrested along with their daughters after a brawl outside Woonsocket Middle School Monday answered charges this morning in District Court, Providence.

One of the mothers, Ana Rivera, pleaded not guilty to a simple assault charge, which alleges that she punched the 13-year-old daughter of Maribel Santiago.

Appearing before Judge Michael A. Higgins, Rivera, 44, was asked through an interpreter if she accepts the misdeanor charge.

"No, that's false," she said. Her case was turned over to the public defender, and she is scheduled to return to court Jan. 29.

Maribel Santiago, the other mother, pleaded no contest to a simple assault charge, which alleges that she punched vice principal Robert J. Picard, who intervened in the scuffle.

She was given a one-year filing, the lowest level of punishment for first time offenders. If she stays out of trouble for that period, the charge will not be on her permanent record.

Both women were arrested Monday after a fight outside the middle school, which is New England's largest middle school with 1,500 students. Police and school officials allege that Rivera drove her daughter--whom they claim was suspended -- to the school to initate a fight with Santiago's daughter.

Officials say that Rivera also assaulted Santiago’s daughter after the two girls began fighting, and that Santiago punched Picard in the face when he tried to break up the altercation. Rivera’s hand was cut in the brawl, but officers have found no evidence that a weapon was used.

Santiago and Rivera's daughters, as well as two other 13-year-old girls who made threats, were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. The four girls were suspended from school.

Interviewed after her arraignment, Rivera gave a different account than has been provided by police and school officials. She said that her daughter was not suspended at that time, but she told her to stay home from school for her own protection.

"I told my daughter not to go to school, because they were going to jump my daughter," she said. Her daughter, who came to the arraignment with her, nodded in agreement.

Santiago, however, has said that it was Rivera and her daughter who were making threats, and that Santiago went to the school to collect her daughter and bring her home.

Not so, says Rivera.

After ordering her daughter to stay home, Rivera said she went to work. But the other girls continued calling the house and taunting the girl, prompting her to walk to the school to face them.

"I was like 'Oh really?,' so I left the house and went to school to fight the girl," Rivera's daughter said.

When Rivera called her daughter and found out she was on her way to confront the other girls, she drove to the school to stop the fight. In her effort to intervene, her hand was cut.

"I was trying to separate the girls," she said.