A former Department of Children and Families employee posed as a student by allegedly falsifying paperwork to attend three Boston high schools, including Jamaica Plain's English High.
Boston Police and the Suffolk County District Attorney's are investigating the 32-year old woman, whose father has told media outlets that his daughter was in need of mental health help and is receiving it now.
Boston Public Schools said the woman attended the Jeremiah E. Burke High School, Brighton High School, and English High School. WCVB reported that the woman graduated from Sharon High School in 2009, earned an undergrad degree at Wheelock College and got her Masters of Education in School Counseling from UMass-Boston in 2016.
The woman's alleged charade crashed down at her third high school stop in recent months, at English High, after an unidentified man went to the school and said she would be withdrawing his daughter because of bullying -- but she had just enrolled at the school less than a week before, report WCVB. School administrators then saw some irregularities with paperwork on June 14 and contacted school leaders who contacted Boston Police.
"I am deeply troubled that an adult would breach the trust of our school communities by posing as a student," Boston Public Schools Superintendent Mary Skipper said via written statement. "This appears to be a case of extremely sophisticated fraud. As soon as BPS personnel identified irregularities with the student’s enrollment, the case was referred to the Boston Police who are now undertaking a criminal investigation."
Governor Maura Healey called it "a really disturbing situation," and said the woman was no longer a DCF employee as of February of this year.
While many questions remain, it appears that no one was hurt.
“I think the most important thing is that you know, no harm that we know of right now has been caused to other students. And, you know, obviously, that was our No. 1 priority. And otherwise, I think, you know, we're waiting for more information regarding the investigation,” said Jessica Tang, the president of the Boston Teachers Union.