Bay Area teacher wrongly ID'd as convict, pulled from class due to last name 'Smith'

""I don't know, I think I was just in shock," Smith said. "Literally we had just moved our family 2,000 miles... and then this.""

""I just moved to the most expensive state in the freaking country. And I immediately lose my job. And that was freaking scary," Smith said."

""They call me into the office, the head of HR... my background check, like it came back that I lied on it," she said. "Well, my heart stopped.""

""Like, this isn't me. And it was so hard because you can't talk to anybody. I just kept saying this isn't me, this isn't me, and it didn't matter because they weren't gonna do anything about it," Smith said."

Jodi Smith and her family moved from Minnesota to San Jose after her husband was hired by Apple. Smith obtained a special education teaching position with the Oak Grove School District. Weeks into the school year, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing denied her credential after a background check indicated a 2009 DUI conviction in Tulare County. The conviction belonged to someone else with the common last name Smith. The credential denial led to her removal from the classroom and job loss, threatening family finances in the expensive Bay Area. She then faced the challenge of proving her innocence and correcting official records.

Read at ABC7 San Francisco