Imagine this, you’re a junior in high school being forced to take U.S History. You walk into class, already dreading learning about white guys who gave themselves too much power. With a regular class, you’d stay the whole time with dread, but in Ms. Hoyt’s class, that was a different story. Every day as a junior, walking into Ms. Hoyt’s class was fun – I was kept on my toes because of the unpredictability, and with all the activities it was nothing less than fun.

This year, Ms. Hoyt made the executive decision to resign from Sahuaro, why? Because her beliefs matter to her. She says, “I’m leaving because I’m unhappy with our district’s response to COVID. I felt pretty useless in the system, and I think I can be more useful elsewhere.” Her authentic personality made this a hard decision, but one she knew she needed to make. 

So where is she headed next? Ms. Hoyt says that she accepted a job at Leman Academy, a K-8 school. But, she’s going to miss so many things from Sahuaro. Apart from her students, she says, “I’m definitely going to miss the view of the trees from my classroom. Sahuaro was built during the Cold War, so those trees are just super cool.” She says that the best part of teaching was the fact that she could combine all three of her favorite things. “Students. And getting to give away candy to students. I love history, and talking about history. So when you combine students and history and candy – that’s the best part.”

As for memories, when I asked Ms. Hoyt what her favorite memory was, she responded with multiple because her teaching career really was too much to fit into a simple memory. “We did a competition where we had to match up pieces of paper on the board, there was a team called socks and a team called shoes. Team socks took off their shoes and slid on the floor!” she recalls. Another memory that struck out to her was her first day as an official teacher at Sahuaro. She says, “On my first day as a teacher, I was cutting up bathroom passes and I was so nervous I felt like throwing up. Then someone knocked on my door, and it was a student that I had the year before when I was student teaching. He said ‘Ms. Hoyt I love the way your classroom looks! I love the posters that were hung up’ and that was just very motivating.” 

If there’s one thing you take from somebody like Ms. Hoyt, it’s that positivity goes a long way. Never in a million years did I think that U.S history was as interesting as it was until I joined Ms. Hoyt’s class. It’s just nice to have a teacher who cares in the classroom. Krystel Orehek, junior, recalls her class with Ms. Hoyt. “Ms. Hoyt was a really nice teacher, who always helped her students and genuinely wanted us to succeed! AP world is a stressful class, but she always tried her best to make it as fun as she could :)” Another student, Samantha Valdez says, “She always had a positive attitude and was always excited about teaching.”

When I asked Ms. Hoyt if there was anything else she wanted to say, she said that she wanted to give out a message. Of course, this message was for the students. “I feel happy with my life right now. I feel a lot  of joy being alive in the morning, walking my dog, teaching my kids, driving my truck. That’s really cool, because life used to not be so fun to be alive for me. So I’ve been really happy this past couple months. If I could send a message to the world, it would be that sometimes you can be happy to be alive.” 

We’ll miss you, Ms. Hoyt.