Boston Police are also investigating the man and woman who claimed to be Shelby Hewitt's parents, according to an incident repot obtained by Inside Edition Digital.
A Massachusetts woman posed as a high school student and enrolled in three Boston schools over the past year, according to authorities and documents obtained by Inside Edition Digital.
Shelby Hewitt, a 32-year-old social worker who previously worked for the Department of Children and Families (DCFS), is now being investigated by police.
DCFS is launching their own investigation, a spokesperson tells Inside Edition Digital, while also noting that Hewitt no longer works for the agency as of February 2023.
Boston Police are also investigating the man and woman who claimed to be Hewitt's parents, according to an incident repot obtained by Inside Edition Digital.
That report also details how the school learned of Hewitt's fraudulent enrollment.
"They became concerned when [redacted] came to the school to take [redacted] home and made a statement that they will be withdrawing and enrolling her into [a nearby private school] because of the bullying that his 'daughter' was receiving in school," reads the report. "The school found it odd because [redacted] was just enrolled on Thursday, June 8th, and just earlier in the morning they had begun to address the bullying with [redacted] and [redacted]."
The school then became concerned that there might become some sort of custodial issue and decided to request a copy of her enrollment paperwork from the district, according to the report.
That paperwork had a wrong number listed for a contact at DCFS, says the report, and when the school reached out to that DCFS office, they learned no employee with that name worked at the office.
At that point, the school notified authorities.
Police initially assumed the student was a juvenile and launched an investigation into human trafficking, the report says.
In the days that followed, however, administrators came to discover the students had attended two other schools this year. Further investigation by the school revealed that the student was actually a 32-year-old woman.
“I am deeply troubled that an adult would breach the trust of our school communities by posing as a student. This appears to be a case of extremely sophisticated fraud," Boston Schools Superintendent Mary Skipper tells Inside Edition Digital. "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. I am grateful to the BPS staff who caught this and quickly acted and to the Boston Police for launching an immediate investigation.”
Skipper also sent a letter to families whose children were enrolled at the school on Tuesday.
SUPERINTENDENT MARY SKIPPER LETTER TO FAMILIES
"I am writing to inform you that the Boston Police Department is investigating the fraudulent enrollment of an adult woman who used falsified identification and paperwork to register as a student this academic year. This individual has been discharged and is being ordered to stay away from Boston Public Schools (BPS) facilities," reads the letter. "At various points during the 2022-2023 school year, this individual attended the Jeremiah E. Burke High School, Brighton High School, and English High School utilizing the student transfer process and enrolling under multiple pseudonyms."
Skipper later writes that "school officials have not identified any incidents of harm to students or staff," and notes "families of students who may have interacted with this individual are being contacted directly by school staff and investigators. "
Hewitt did not respond to Inside Edition Digtial's request for comment.
