The 15-Year Journey Back to the Classroom

Present Day

At 11:30 on a Wednesday morning, Fahima Sadique stands at the front of a fourth-grade classroom in Richmond, California. The students are working through a lesson, calling out answers and waving their hands in the air. Fahima smiles and laughs easily. Her classroom is calm and focused, and her students are thriving academically.

Fahima is 51 years old. This is her first year teaching fourth grade in California.

The surprising thing is not that she became a teacher. It is that it took so long. Before immigrating to the United States, she had spent 16 years teaching mathematics in Sri Lanka. Yet after arriving in California, a teacher with nearly two decades of classroom experience would have to wait 15 years before leading a classroom of her own again.

1994  |  Age 19

Fahima grew up in a small town in Sri Lanka, where teaching runs through her family. Her mother was a teacher, and so are her sisters. In her early twenties, Fahima followed in their footsteps, earning her teaching credential and becoming a mathematics teacher at an international school.

After 16 years of teaching, her family unexpectedly won the U.S. green card lottery, promising a new life in America. Fahima assumed it would also allow her to continue the work she had devoted her career to.

2016  |  Age 41

One of those relationships became a critical entry point back into teaching in 2016. A woman asked Fahima about her background. When Fahima explained that she had been a teacher in Sri Lanka for 16 years, the woman, an employee of West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD), seemed surprised.

“Why aren’t you teaching here?” she asked. Fahima remembers the question because she did not know how to answer it.

Around the same time, her son mentioned to his school principal that his mother had once been a teacher back home. One afternoon, while Fahima was picking him up from school, the principal called her into the office and began asking about her experience.

“He asked why [I] wasn’t teaching… I said, ‘I don’t know where to go.’”

With the principal’s help, Fahima was getting her fingerprints taken for employment the very next day. Shortly afterward, she joined WCCUSD as an instructional aide, restarting her career in an entry-level position.

To take the next step toward becoming a full-time teacher in California, Fahima needed to determine whether her 16 years of experience and her degrees from Sri Lanka would transfer to the United States. After speaking with a counselor, she learned that California’s education system had no way to recognize what she already knew and convert it into progress toward a teaching credential. Despite 16 years of classroom experience and multiple degrees, there was no clear pathway for gaining recognition of her experience.

If she wanted to teach again, she would need to start over. Completely.

2019  |  Age 44

During her first years in the United States, Fahima’s children were still young. Returning to school for her associate’s degree meant fitting coursework around the demands of working full time while raising a family. In the year prior, she had transitioned into a higher-paying role within the district. Even then, she supplemented her income by working in an after-school program and as an in-home care nurse.

Fahima recalls that her days began at four in the morning. She would wake up, pray, cook, clean, and prepare breakfast and lunch for her children before leaving for work. She worked during the day and would teach at an after-school program at the Bay Area Community Center until early evening. At night, she completed college assignments, often submitting them at one or two in the morning because there had been no earlier time to complete them.

Fahima describes those years as “long.” There was no option to stop working while carrying a full course load and helping support her young family. Even so, she earned two associate degrees in just two years: one in early childhood education in 2019 and another in liberal arts in 2020.

2023  |  Age 48

Once she had completed her associates degrees, figuring out what came next happened by chance. One afternoon, while sitting at a computer at work, Fahima received an email from the school district about a partnership with Rivet School offering flexible degree programs for district employees. With encouragement from her husband, she contacted someone at Rivet and received a reply immediately.

The email stood out because, for years, nearly every step in Fahima’s journey had depended on her finding the next opportunity herself. The system had offered few clear directions about where to go next or who to talk to. She had learned about jobs, degree programs, and credential requirements through conversations, chance encounters, and people willing to help along the way.

This time, however, the opportunity came directly from a trusted source: her employer. Rather than requiring Fahima to navigate another unfamiliar institution, WCCUSD had partnered with Rivet to offer employees a flexible, affordable pathway to a bachelor’s degree.

For Fahima, the timing mattered. She was still working, raising her family, and balancing multiple responsibilities. Attending a traditional bachelor’s degree program would have meant fitting fixed class schedules and campus requirements into a life that already had little room to spare.

Through Rivet School, Fahima enrolled at Southern New Hampshire University and completed her bachelor’s degree virtually in just 10 months. What stood out to her was how much support she experienced during the program. She often mentions her college coach, Melissa, who checked in regularly and helped guide her through the process.

“She made me feel like this was my home,” Fahima says.

The flexibility and support were intentional. Rivet’s model is designed around the realities of working learners, allowing students to complete coursework during evenings and weekends rather than around fixed, in-person class schedules. Students are paired with coaches who help with academic planning, goal setting, and navigating the inevitable challenges that arise while balancing school, work, and family responsibilities.

For districts like WCCUSD, the partnership addressed another challenge as well: teacher shortages. Kristyn Loy, the district’s teacher residency coordinator and herself a former teacher who rose through the profession over time, says many of the pathways that existed when she entered the profession no longer fit the lives of prospective educators.

Part of the district’s strategy is tied to a growing “grow your own” movement in education, which focuses on developing talent already working within schools and communities. Many paraprofessionals and school staff already have years of classroom experience, relationships with families, and deep familiarity with the communities where they work. In many cases, Loy says, finding the time to go after a credential is the primary barrier.

“These wonderful people who have been supporting our students, who have been in the classroom for years and have dreamt of becoming teachers, there was just the barrier of having a bachelor’s degree,” Loy says. “The traditional college experience has been a barrier for a lot of our employees specifically.”

After years of trying to fit her life around the demands of education, Fahima found a pathway that fit her life. Reflecting on the program, she says, “[Rivet contacts] were so nice, kind, and encouraged me to do this. I think that was my real big turning point.”

Fahima completed her bachelor’s degree in just 10 months. Aware of her age and eager to return to the classroom as a teacher, she wanted to move as quickly as possible. For the first time, the system worked with her.

Through her own determination and luck, Fahima eventually found a path forward. But her story raises a larger question: How many other Californians already have the talent, experience, and determination to contribute more to their communities if they can access pathways that recognize what they know and fit the realities of their lives?

Now that she is finally a teacher, Fahima does not dwell on what it took to get there. Her focus is what she can give back to her community.

“Education brought me from getting help to helping others,” she says. “Today, I’m helping my students, and I’m helping people in my home country. I think that is the biggest success.”