At English High School, she glided by Ellie. At Jeremiah E. Burke High School, she launched herself as Daniella.

But the authorities have now discovered that Ellie and Daniella have been the aliases for Shelby Hewitt, a 32-year-old former state social employee who they are saying posed as a highschool pupil at three Boston public faculties — the place she gossiped with youngsters throughout lunch and complained about homework.

On Tuesday, she was charged with three counts of forgery of paperwork, two counts of false writing and one depend of identification fraud in West Roxbury Division Boston Municipal Court, information present.

Ms. Hewitt — who enrolled below completely different aliases within the 2022-2023 faculty yr at English, Jeremiah E. Burke, and Brighton High faculties by forging paperwork — had not been arrested as of Thursday, in keeping with the Boston Police Department, which declined to reply questions in regards to the case.

Ms. Hewitt intermittently labored as a social employee on the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families from 2016 till February 2023, the division stated. The division didn’t say why Ms. Hewitt was not employed. She couldn’t instantly be reached for touch upon Thursday and it was unclear if she had a lawyer.

Mary Skipper, the Boston Public School superintendent, instructed mother and father in regards to the identification fraud case in a observe on June 20, saying that Ms. Hewitt had been ordered to avoid Boston Public School services.

“While the investigation is in its early stages and remains ongoing, school officials have not identified any incidents of harm to students or staff,” Ms. Skipper wrote. “At this time families of students who may have interacted with this individual are being contacted directly by school staff and investigators.”

Ms. Skipper later stated in a press release that she was “deeply troubled” by the state of affairs, calling it an “extremely sophisticated fraud.”

The case troubled mother and father within the district and confused college students who had come to know Ms. Hewitt below completely different names and backgrounds. It is unclear what could have been Ms. Hewitt’s motive to infiltrate a number of faculties.

Janell Lamons, 15, stated in an interview that she met Ms. Hewitt final September at Jeremiah E. Burke High School, the place the 2 would eat lunch collectively on the library. Ms. Hewitt, who claimed to be 16 years outdated, instructed Janell that her title was Daniella, that she was from Colombia and that she was in foster care.

Janell stated that whereas Ms. Hewitt gave the impression to be considerably regular as they talked about lecturers and homework, she nonetheless seen unusual conduct. Once, she stated, Ms. Hewitt introduced a trash bag full of garments to high school and claimed that she was going to a brand new foster dwelling. Sometimes Ms. Hewitt would “get very emotional” after lecturers instructed her to focus at school and do her work, Janell stated.

“She would sometimes walk out of class and wander around in the hallways,” Janell stated, including that she sometimes noticed Ms. Hewitt crying at college.

School directors took a more in-depth take a look at her enrollment paperwork after a person posing as her father stated he could be withdrawing her due to bullying, the police report stated.

They seen that one of many enrollment types inaccurately referred to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families because the “Department of Children rind Families,” and likewise included different errors. That prompted them to name and ask for the social employee listed on the shape.

The faculty was instructed by the division that nobody by that title labored there, the police report states, prompting faculty officers to contact the police.

The authorities executed a search warrant at Ms. Hewitt’s condominium on June 15 and located cast paperwork, the police report states.

Mayor Michelle Wu stated on WBUR’s Radio Boston that the case was “extremely disturbing.”

“If someone told me that an adult many decades removed from being in some of these age-appropriate settings was back in school — it’s concerning,” Ms. Wu stated.

Ms. Hewitt shouldn’t be the primary to face fees associated to impersonating a young person. In March, the authorities stated a 29-year-old girl had been pretending to be a teenager at New Brunswick High in New Jersey, in a case that captured the eye of hundreds of thousands of individuals on-line. In the early 2000s, Frédéric Bourdin serially impersonated youngsters in youth shelters, junior excessive faculties and orphanages all through Europe, The New Yorker reported.

Kirsten Noyes contributed analysis.