Woman, 29, arrested after posing as high school student and attending classes
School board officials say she showed school officials a falsified birth certificate to pose as a 15-year-old freshman.
A New Jersey woman was arrested after posing as a high school student and enrolling in classes for four days, authorities said.
Hyejeong Shin, 29, was arrested and charged with forging a government document. School board officials say she showed school officials a falsified birth certificate to pose as a teenager and attend classes at New Brunswick High School.
‘By filing false documents, an adult female posing as a student was able to be enrolled in our high school,’ New Brunswick Superintendent Aubrey Johnson said at a school board meeting.
‘She was in a few classes, and then most of the time in our Guidance Suite as we were trying to get more information from her,’ he said.
Johnson said police were immediately notified when staff members discovered the ruse. New Brunswick Today reported that she caught the attention of school staff after they could not identify her parent or legal guardian.
However, Shin, who was reportedly posing as a 15-year-old freshman, did manage to interact with students before the faculty caught on. Some students even said she contacted them to hang out after classes.
‘Some of the girls I know, the girl did ask them to hang out at Commercial Avenue, but they never showed up, and she started acting weird with them,’ one student told CBS Philadelphia.
‘She was in our high school, and we have also made sure that we told our students to refrain from contacting her – either remotely or in person,’ Johnson told worried parents at the school board meeting.
Johnson said the school was communicating with the students that Shin interacted with directly.
A photo of Shin was circulated to all students, who were warned not to engage with her further. According to a letter sent to students, she has been banned from all school district property.
The superintendent also said that the district was looking for ways to reform the documentation process to catch forged paperwork.
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