Woman, 29, Enrolled in High School and Pretended to Be a Teenager

For 4 days, a 29-year-old lady pretended to be a pupil at a New Jersey public highschool. She attended courses, frolicked within the steering workplace and picked up telephone numbers from youngsters who helped her discover her means by way of the maze of hallways, based on college students and a faculty official.

She continued to textual content former classmates days after the ruse was found final week, college students mentioned.

The lady, recognized by the police as Hyejeong Shin, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with offering paperwork that falsified her age to officers at New Brunswick Public Colleges, a district with almost 10,000 college students in central New Jersey.

The incident, first reported by New Brunswick As we speak, has raised considerations concerning the security protocols in place to confirm pupil identities — and the girl’s purpose for sneaking into a faculty that enrolls kids as younger as 15 within the first place.

Aubrey A. Johnson, the varsity superintendent, informed board members Tuesday evening that the district can be evaluating “learn how to higher search for pretend documentation and different issues,” based on a video of the assembly shared on Twitter. Neither faculty nor police officers supplied any details about a doable motive for her habits.

Ms. Shin, of New Brunswick, N.J., offered a false beginning certificates to highschool officers, a third-degree crime, based on a spokesman for town’s Police Division.

Colleges in New Jersey are required to provisionally enroll all kids at school, even within the absence of information usually offered to confirm id or show they reside locally.

From that time, college students have 30 days to offer extra proof of id, or the district has the choice to declare them ineligible to attend class, based on the superintendent.

“As soon as our workers decided it was coping with fraudulent info, they instantly notified the suitable authorities,” Mr. Johnson mentioned in a press release.

Ms. Shin has been barred from getting into faculty grounds, and college students have been suggested to finish all contact along with her.

The story could appear to be a throwback to “By no means Been Kissed” and “Hiding Out,” PG-13-rated motion pictures that featured the excessive jinks of adults impersonating highschool college students to report a information story and conceal from the Mafia.

However college students at New Brunswick Excessive College mentioned they had been anxious that Ms. Shin’s habits prompt that her motives had been far much less comical.

Practically a dozen college students confirmed up at Tuesday’s Board of Schooling assembly ready to precise considerations concerning the incident however weren’t permitted to talk due to a rule requiring audio system to register upfront.

College students informed a New Brunswick As we speak reporter, in a video posted to YouTube, that Ms. Shin had requested to satisfy at the very least some folks she met at a location exterior of college.

One teenage lady, who recognized herself as Tatiana, mentioned that the evening earlier than the girl’s arrest she received a textual content from Ms. Shin that left her feeling frightened for her security.

“All I needed to do was make her really feel snug in a brand new faculty,” she mentioned.

“If she has the power to falsify paperwork, enter a public highschool, have shut contact with younger college students,” she added, “she has the power to do something.”

Calls to a New Brunswick resident with the identical title because the 29-year-old weren’t returned. Neither the mayor of New Brunswick nor his spokesman returned calls.

Alain Delaquérière contributed analysis.