29-year-old woman arrested after enrolling as New Brunswick high school student: police

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Wednesday, January 25, 2023
29-year-old woman arrested after enrolling as NJ high school student
Students and parents were left feeling uneasy after a 29-year-old woman was arrested for enrolling as a high school student. Michelle Charlesworth has the story.

NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey (WABC) -- A grown woman was arrested for allegedly posing as a student at a New Jersey high school, and students are left feeling unsettled after she was able to attend classes for almost a week before officials caught on.

Police say 29-year-old Hyejeong Shin enrolled at New Brunswick High School using a fake birth certificate and attended as a student for four days before she was arrested.

Shin was charged with providing a false government document and has since been barred from entering the school, but parents and students are still feeling uneasy.

"Last week supposedly the administrators let in a 29-year-old Korean lady, " one student said. "So basically everybody was scared. Some people gave their personal information to that lady."

Students say they don't feel safe and staged a protest at the school Wednesday afternoon.

"This old woman came to the school she was trying to get kids to link," another student said. "It makes a lot of students feel insecure and I get it."

New Brunswick Public Schools Superintendent Aubrey Johnson released a statement that said, "state law prohibits a student being prevented from attending school based on lack of documentation."

The superintendent's office goes on to say that there is a provisional 30-day period and that officials caught on to Shin within that time frame.

At a recent school board meeting a review of the protocol was mentioned.

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