Graduating Senior Earns LBUSD Teacher Contract Commitment

As part of the Long Beach Unified School District’s new “Grow Your Own Initiative” designed to encourage high school students to one day return to their communities to teach, graduating senior Daisy Martin from Poly High School will become the first student in the program awarded a certificate and a commitment to a teacher contract during this week’s commencement ceremony. 

The initiative allows high school students to return to their communities as teachers after finishing university or certification requirements. In partnership with Long Beach City College, LBUSD created a dual enrollment course outline that allows students to earn a certificate and be awarded a commitment to a teacher contract to teach in LBUSD. 

The concept and course information were presented to future teacher clubs at LBUSD’s Jordan, Millikan and Poly high schools. A cohort of students from all three high schools is scheduled to begin the new certificate courses at LBCC in the fall. But one student, Daisy Martin, took the courses on her own after hearing the concept. She was the first student to sign up on the interest list at Poly, where her mom is a teacher. Daisy, who has been the Poly Future Teachers Club President for the last two years, knew her career path at an early age.

“I’ve pretty much known since elementary school,” Daisy said. “In third grade, we had a ‘be the teacher for a day’ event and that was probably the beginning of wanting to be a teacher. I really want to help kids, and it’s just kind of always been that way.”

Daisy plans to take one more of the “Grow Your Own” courses at LBCC this summer and will major in child development at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Poly’s commencement is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 14 at Veterans Stadium, located at 5000 E. Lew Davis St. in Long Beach.