A 29-year-old woman who allegedly enrolled in a New Jersey high school and posed as a student has been arrested, authorities said this week.
The woman – identified by police as Hyejeong Shin – faces a charge of providing a false government document with the intent to lie about her age in a case which again demonstrates that officials in real life do not respond kindly to the plots of movies such as 1999’s Never Been Kissed and 1987’s Hiding Out being carried out under their watch.
Investigators accuse Shin of providing a fake birth certificate meant to convince officials that she was eligible to enroll at New Brunswick high school.
The local school district’s superintendent said at a public meeting on Tuesday that Shin had actually gone to classes for four days before she was caught. New Brunswick Today reporter Charlie Kratovil shared a video on Twitter of the superintendent’s remarks.
Shin spent most of her time at New Brunswick high meeting with counselors who were trying to learn more about her, superintendent Aubrey Johnson said. The school’s staff ultimately determined that Shin had used fraudulent information to gain enrollment and “immediately notified the appropriate authorities”, Johnson added in a statement on Wednesday that was reported on by NBC News.
A statement from police said that schools in New Jersey must “immediately enroll unaccompanied children, even the absence of records normally required”. However, school districts can then ask for documents meant to verify a student’s age, and it was that option which proved to be the downfall of Shin’s alleged ruse.
“This is an unfortunate event,” Johnson added. “Communication has been provided to the parents of individuals that the young lady may have come into contact with, and communication has been provided to all high school parents,” Johnson said.
New Brunswick Today reported that students feared Shin may have been trying to lure young people into sex work.
Attempts to contact Shin for comment were unsuccessful on Friday, and it was unclear if an attorney is representing her.
Her arrest came more than two years after a man in his 20s posed as a high school student and was the best player on his campus’s basketball team.
The school authorities stated that the matter is being investigated by the police, and a review of the enrolment process of the district will be conducted by the authorities.
The issue was raised on Tuesday at a local education board meeting, where the attendees were informed by New Brunswick Public School District Superintendent Aubrey Johnson that Shin was caught faking her identity in the school.
"Last week, by filing some false documents, an adult female posing as a student was able to be enrolled in our high school," said Johnson. He stated that she attended a few classes and also held talks with guidance counsellors, who made efforts to dig into more information about her. The false age of Shin was then discovered, said Johnson, adding that the police were immediately notified by the school.
Since then, the police have arrested her for submitting a false birth certificate "with the intent to enrol as a juvenile high-school student", stated the New Brunswick Police Department.Students said some of them had received texts from the woman, asking them to hang out.
While speaking to CBS New York, one student said that the girls "never showed up, and she (Shin) started acting weird with them". The police stated that students are allowed, as per New Jersey state law, to get admission to school without submitting the required paperwork or without even a guardian.
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