A name-only background check linked Jodi Smith to a stranger’s DUI, triggering months of delays and lost pay before the error was cleared.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Weeks into the last school year, special education teacher Jodi Smith was pulled from her Oak Grove School District classroom after state officials said a background check showed a 2009 DUI in Tulare County. Smith, who recently moved from Minnesota, said the record wasn’t hers and spent months proving it.
Smith’s case shows how a “soft” background check that relies on names and numbers can derail a teaching career in California. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing denied her credential based on a Department of Justice report that mixed multiple people with the last name Smith. While a fingerprint screen showed no criminal record, the name-based result prevailed for weeks. Smith was reassigned as a teacher’s aide and later as an emergency substitute at far lower pay while the state rechecked the file, a process that concluded months later.
Smith said the call came with little warning: human resources told her the check indicated she lied on her application. The commission had flagged the old DUI as grounds to deny credentials. Smith said she was told to obtain the Tulare County court record and reapply, paying another fee, even though she insisted the case belonged to someone else. “My heart stopped,” she said, recalling the meeting. Unable to teach without a credential, Smith kept showing up for her students under lower-paid roles and worried whether even that was allowed. “I still showed up to work. Put a smile on my face,” she said.
The Department of Justice later sent a rap sheet listing arrests for three different people who shared the last name Smith; one had the 2009 conviction. A disclaimer described the search as name- and number-based rather than fingerprints. The commission used that report to deny the credential, Smith said. She filed a dispute with the Justice Department to clear the error. By December, the department determined the DUI did not belong to Smith; records showed she used her maiden name, Stanton, at the time. Her credential was issued, but she counted about $24,000 in lost wages and months of classroom disruption.
State officials declined to answer questions about the error or Smith’s loss. The Attorney General’s office said California law requires the Justice Department to provide all possible matches using various identifiers, not just fingerprints, for licensing checks. The commission said applicants are responsible for clearing mistakes that appear on their records. The Justice Department conducts roughly two million background checks each year and has a process for contesting errors, but it did not say how often mismatches occur. The Oak Grove School District did not comment on Smith’s personnel matter.
Smith and her family had just moved 2,000 miles when the denial arrived. Her husband had been hired by Apple; her new job helped cover Bay Area expenses. Instead, she said she hid in her classroom, kept the door closed and cried between lessons while she tried to get answers from agencies that would not speak by phone. The experience shook her trust in the process. “How on earth do you do a name background check with a name like Smith?” she said. “I guess I’m at fault because my name is common.”
Claims for damages are unlikely to succeed. Smith filed a claim for her loss, but the Justice Department and the credentialing commission are largely immune from most civil damages. The Attorney General’s website notes background checks aim to protect students and other vulnerable people by alerting licensing authorities to arrests or convictions. For Smith, that public-safety safeguard collided with a common name and a slow correction process that kept her out of class for much of a semester.
Smith now holds a valid credential after the error was removed, but the district lost instructional time and continuity. The next milestone is whether state agencies will review how name-based hits are weighed against fingerprint screens or whether guidance will change for districts during disputes. For now, Smith is back at work; the case stands as a test of how California handles common-name mismatches.
Author note: Last updated November 15, 2025.