For Joy Pederson, coming home to Will C. Wood High School isn't just a return to a familiar place. It's the place where she first discovered the teacher she wanted to become.
Joy graduated from Vacaville High School in 2017, but her connection to VUSD didn't end when she crossed the graduation stage. In fact, some of the most important steps in her journey began just weeks before she graduated.
During the final minutes of her sixth-period Psychology class, Mrs. Ana Farina, on the last day of her senior year, her teacher mentioned an opportunity to become an AVID tutor.
Joy applied.
She ended up spending the next five years working with VUSD students, moving between Will C. Wood, Vacaville High and Willis Jepson Middle School. Along the way, something became clear: she loved working with teenagers.
“I fell in love with working with teenagers,” Joy said.
As an AVID tutor, Joy had the unique opportunity to grow alongside her students. She worked with many of the same students year after year, watching them go from freshmen figuring out high school to young adults preparing for college and their futures.
She watched the Class of 2021 and Class of 2022 graduate. She celebrated their growth. And somewhere along the way, the AVID tutor who had once been a VUSD student realized that she wanted to stand in front of a classroom of her own.
Joy's path took her to Solano Community College, where she earned an associate degree in Liberal Studies, and then to UC Davis.
As a Regents Scholar and member of the University Honors Program, she earned her bachelor's degree in History with a minor in Education in 2021.
But graduating during COVID-19 meant entering an uncertain world.
Schools were closed. Distance learning had become the norm. And while Joy knew she wanted to become a high school history teacher, she decided to take a gap year before beginning her teaching credential program.
She continued working as an AVID tutor and kept learning from the students who had helped confirm that high school was where she belonged.
Eventually, Joy enrolled in the UC Davis School of Education and returned to Wood as a student teacher, teaching 10th grade World History under the supervision of Anthony Sanchez. She then spent three years at Pioneer High School in Woodland teaching World and U.S. History while earning her master's degree in Education.
And then came the moment she had been waiting for.
Joy came home.
“I always knew I wanted to return to Vacaville and teach in the community I love,” she said.
This year, Joy returned to Will C. Wood High School—not as a student, not as an AVID tutor, and not as a student teacher, but as Mrs. Rogers, Social Science teacher.
For Joy, the moment is about more than a new job. It's the culmination of a dream that began long before she knew exactly what it would look like.
Her love of teaching started when she was a child. Joy's mother taught first grade at Browns Valley Elementary School for 28 years, and Joy grew up spending afternoons in her classroom. She played school, taught puppets and stuffed animals, and helped her mom create welcoming classrooms for generations of first graders.
Her mother became her greatest inspiration.
“I saw how she poured her heart and soul into her 28-year-long career in the classroom, and I wanted to be just like her,” Joy said.
This year, that story came full circle when Joy's mom came to help decorate her daughter's VUSD classroom—just as Joy had spent so many years helping her decorate hers. There are some moments that feel almost too perfect to plan and this was one of them.
Joy's own high school teachers also helped shape the teacher she would become. Mrs. Farina, Mrs. Omand, Mr. Cacas and Ms. WildGoose were among her favorites, and her years working with AVID confirmed something she had already begun to understand: high school was where she belonged.
“I loved the complex topics my students and I could discuss and the teasing they could handle and dish back,” she said.
And history gave her the perfect way to bring those conversations into the classroom. Joy loves history because she loves storytelling. To her, learning history isn't simply about memorizing dates or names. It's about understanding where we've been so we can better understand the world we live in today.
“I think it's so important that we learn from our past and understand our world and nation,” she said.
Now, she gets to share that passion with students in the same community that helped shape her. Returning to Wood has been everything Joy hoped it would be and more.
From the moment she stepped back onto campus as a staff member, former mentors and colleagues welcomed her with hugs, fist bumps and plenty of “welcome homes.” Seeing former AVID supervisors Ms. Mitsi and Ms. Gordon again has been especially meaningful.
“Coming home and working in the school district that raised me and with former mentors and now colleagues has been amazing,” Joy said. And there is something especially meaningful about watching someone who once sat in these classrooms now lead one.
Joy knows what it feels like to be a VUSD student trying to figure out what's next. She knows what it means to have teachers who see potential in you. She knows the impact an AVID tutor can have simply by showing up, year after year, and believing in students.
Now, she gets to be that person for someone else.
As she begins this new chapter, Joy has plenty to celebrate: her first year as a teacher, her first year teaching Senior Government, her first year as Mrs. Rogers after getting married nine months ago, and her seventh year as part of the Wildcat Family.
But perhaps the most meaningful part is that Joy gets to begin this chapter in the community that raised her, at the school where she first discovered that high school was where she belonged, alongside some of the teachers who once inspired her. Now, she gets to create that same experience for a new generation of students in a classroom of her own.
“I’m excited to keep learning and growing as an educator at a school I love in the city that raised me,” Joy said.
For Joy, this isn't simply a new beginning. It's the kind of full-circle moment that reminds her just how far she's come and how special it is to come home.