An adult woman who enrolled in three BPS high schools over the last year and is now being investigated by police worked in the state Department of Children and Families until February, the governor said.
“She was no longer a DCF employee as of February of this year, but a disturbing situation and we’ll continue to learn more from authorities as they investigate,” Gov. Maura Healey said Wednesday.
The woman, who has been reported to be 32 years old by media outlets, used an “extremely sophisticated fraud” to enroll in Jeremiah Burke, Brighton and English high schools in the 2022-23 school year, Superintendent Mary Skipper said Tuesday.
A police report on the incident from June 14 said the fraud was discovered when a man came to pick up the woman, who he called his daughter, at school and told an administrator she would be transferring to a Catholic school.
This set up alarms for the staff member, as she had been enrolled in the school for less than a week.
The staff member investigated further, eventually finding that a DCF social worker on the student’s paperwork did not exist and called the police.
Skipper told families Tuesday that “school officials have not identified any incidents of harm to students or staff” but the investigation is still in early stages. Families at the schools may be contacted by investigators and school staff as the investigation continues, she said.
Asked if there should be changes to enrollment procedures to address the vulnerabilities, Healey said the question is under the purview of “local authorities and officials.”
Skipper addressed the situation at Wednesday night’s School Committee meeting, indicating the district “will continue to review all of our systems and processes to make sure that what we did was correct.”
“At this time, I cannot comment further as this remains an ongoing investigation,” Skipper added. “But I do want to publicly thank the BPS staff who caught this quickly acted as well as the Boston Police for launching an immediate investigation. We will provide additional updates if relevant information becomes available through the investigation.”