29-year-old Hyejeong Shin arrested after using fake birth certificate to enroll in, attend New Brunswick High School
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. -- A 29-year-old woman was arrested for pretending to be a high school student in New Jersey.
New Brunswick police say she provided the school district a fake birth certificate in order to enroll.
Students at New Brunswick High School are upset after learning at a school board meeting Tuesday night that a 29-year-old woman was arrested for using a fake birth certificate to enroll and attending school for four days.
Police have charged that woman, Hyejeong Shin, with one count of providing a false government document with the intent to verify one's identity or age. The school circulated a letter with her picture.
"She was pretending to be a freshman, which is more surprising because I don't believe she looks like a freshman," one student said.
"At the same time, it was very unsafe for the school and most of the students in there," another student said.
Students say even though she was there for only four days, they still saw her in the classroom, walking the halls, and some of the students even got text messages from the woman asking to hang out.
"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 said. "It's scary because you never know what could happen."
The mother of a senior at New Brunswick High School says her daughter told her what was going on and thinks it's terrifying.
She says how is it that security, teachers and other staff didn't realize what was going on sooner.
"I asked her how old she was. She did something weird. She looked at me, looked away and looked back at me and walked off. I think that's a red flag, and they need to think so, too," one student said.
As police continue their investigation, the school superintendent says the district will re-examine the enrollment process to better identify false documentation.
Rutgers University confirmed to CBS2 that Shin graduated from the school in 2019.