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We have many Champions here at Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA) with interesting hobbies, but we may have come across one more unique than most. One of our 12th graders, Wyatt, raises, breeds, and shows Netherland Dwarf rabbits, and he has been doing this for the past six to seven years. Over the years, he has had much success with this hobby, including winning many titles like Best of Breed and Best in Show at different events throughout the country. 

Wyatt began raising rabbits after his siblings left the house because he was looking for something to do with his mom. He and she discovered raising, breeding, and showing rabbits and after a year of working with his mom raising Holland Lop rabbits, he decided to branch off and to raise Netherland Dwarf rabbits on his own. Even though they are now each working with different breeds, they still work together and bond over raising and showing their rabbits. Wyatt explained that the Netherland Dwarf rabbit is the second smallest breed weighing in at around 2-2.5 pounds, having a short, stumpy, and stocky frame with short ears. Wyatt raises and breeds the rabbits with the Standard of Perfection in mind—the book that details the perfect rabbit, categorizing and scoring rabbits up to 100 points. He loves watching the rabbits develop and presenting them at events across the country.

Wyatt has traveled to 16 states competing at different shows including three large conventions: one in Reno, Nevada, one in Louisville, Kentucky, and one in Springfield, Massachusetts. These shows have judges who score the rabbits based on the Standard of Perfection. Wyatt shared that the Netherland Dwarf is posed sitting up, with the perfect body being described as a baseball sitting on top of a cantaloupe. At many of these events, his rabbits have earned Best of Breed and even Best in Show. He might need to dedicate a room for housing his ribbons thanks to the number of ribbons he has gained over time. Currently he is thinning down his herd, and shared that he currently has 20-40 rabbits, but that number is constantly in flux based on his goals. 

What he enjoys most about raising rabbits are not the rabbits, but the people. He mentioned he has met many great people over his time raising rabbits, making many friends, gaining mentors, and developing a close community with tight bonds that feels like family. He has traveled and shared many of his greatest life events and achievements with these people, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything. He noted that one of his greatest achievements was when he won Best in Show with one of his home-grown rabbits—a challenge he set for himself in the beginning.  

He loves and appreciates that GCA has been so flexible in working with him to pursue this hobby. Many times, when he has had to travel and compete in an event, GCA allowed him to participate and to work with him to complete assignments and tests. He has never felt like he has missed out on his education thanks to GCA and its flexibility. There are many directions Wyatt could go with this hobby including being a judge or becoming more involved in the American Rabbit Breeders Association, but he knows that one thing is for sure—whether he has 100 rabbits or 1 rabbit, he plans to remain involved in some capacity. We are so proud of Wyatt and his hootworthy rabbits, and we love that he shared this unique hobby with us! We know he has plenty of Best in Shows left to win! 

Hootworthy: The Podcast That Gives a Hoot
We spotlight the students and faculty of GCA and the stories that deserve to be heard.

Watch full episodes on YouTube or learn more at georgiacyber.org/hootworthy.

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We love sharing alumni stories and this one is no exception. Casen, who graduated from Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA) in 2015, has been up to quite a few things since leaving GCA. After attending a ministerial college for two years, he is now working part time in the ministry while he pursues a music career. His hootworthy accomplishment of producing and releasing his own music album titled “Lemonade” stemmed from his passion for writing, singing, and playing music.

Casen’s inspiration to create this album came from one of his favorite movies 500 days of Summer, where the theme was a story of boy meets girl, but it wasn’t a love story. He wanted to create an album that was a love story, but which wasn’t about love. Even though Casen wrote, sang, played, produced, and released the album on his own, he wouldn’t describe it that way. He believes that most art is already present, and it must be discovered from within by the artist rather than created out of nothing. He credits his music influences, education, upbringing, gifts and talents, and the culture around him to the creation of this album.

The album includes 10 songs, but he would really say it’s more like nine and a half. He took a Charlie Puth music producing course to learn how to do it, meanwhile playing all the instruments, writing the lyrics, singing the songs, and arranging the music. The process from start to finish took about two years, as he describes himself as somewhat of a perfectionist. He wanted to make sure everything was just right before releasing it. He says the music genre is indie-folk and singer-songwriter with a sound close to John Mayer, if he had to pick an artist. 

Casen has been playing and writing music since he was around 14 years old, but the hobby came around unexpectedly. His brother had a guitar, and when Casen decided to quit baseball, he found he needed to fill this new free time with something--why not learn guitar, he thought. Because of his online learning experience with GCA and the self-directed learning skills he was acquiring through it, he believed he could learn the guitar online just like he was being educated virtually. He put in the work, and he now has his own music album to show for it!

Casen sometimes performs live at a local coffee shop in Dawsonville with hopes to play more venues in the future. He mentions he is always working on future content, with an acoustic album underway inspired by the influence of his grandpa. People can listen to Casen’s album “Lemonade” on all streaming services by searching “Casen Watson,” and they can stay up to date with him by following him on Instagam @casenpwatson. He wanted to be sure to shout out his GCA community, mom, and his former teacher Ms. Blanda, who now serves as our Middle Principal. We are so proud of Casen and his hootworthy music album, and we encourage everyone to go listen! 

Hootworthy: The Podcast That Gives a Hoot
We spotlight the students and faculty of GCA and the stories that deserve to be heard.

Watch full episodes on YouTube or learn more at georgiacyber.org/hootworthy.

Follow, subscribe, and share. Every story deserves a spotlight.

Send us Fan Mail

We have a lot of talented Champions here at Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA) who engage in many different hobbies. Carmen, a 9th grader who has been attending GCA since 2012, has always been passionate about reading and writing. In fact, she began her hobby of writing stories in the 3rd grade. A GCA assignment led her to create a Hootworthy book website.

Carmen credits the creation of her website, BookCrown, to a project assigned in her computer science class where students were tasked to create a website on anything they wanted. Carmen had a handful of stories she had written already, but never collected and organized them in a place where others could easily access them. She now has a total of 8 stories on her website and continues to increase her book collection. Carmen used the website Canva to add pictures to her books to enhance her stories with illustrations.

Carmen’s stories are typically science-fiction and usually include a love story theme. She emphasized her preference for romance stories as her favorite to both read and write. Carmen writes the stories on her own, but she does get help from her mom for brainstorming and also receives feedback from other family members. She mentioned the main audience for her stories are teenagers but any science-fiction fans can read them.

She plans to continue writing and updating her website with new stories—noting she may even pursue writing as a career. Carmen praised her teachers and GCA for giving her the resources to further her love of reading and writing.  She also thanks her computer science teacher for the website project that turned into BookCrown, the place where she can house her stories for others to read and enjoy. We are so proud of Carmen, her website, and her writing pursuits! We encourage you to check out Carmen’s website BookCrown.

Hootworthy: The Podcast That Gives a Hoot
We spotlight the students and faculty of GCA and the stories that deserve to be heard.

Watch full episodes on YouTube or learn more at georgiacyber.org/hootworthy.

Follow, subscribe, and share. Every story deserves a spotlight.

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Saying we’re proud to have such talented, hardworking, and creative faculty and staff at Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA) might be an understatement after we introduce this Hootworthy staff member!  Ms. Shuman, former GCA ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) teacher currently serving as the ESOL District Supervisor has taught at GCA for ten years, five of those as an ESOL teacher.  She enjoyed serving GCA’s multilingual population in the classroom, and is now leading, inspiring, and encouraging the teachers who support our multilingual students. 

Last school year, Ms. Shuman was tasked with educating multilingual learners in kindergarten, her first time at that grade level as a matter of fact. Coincidentally enough, she had her own kindergartner learning online at the same time, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She noticed how difficult it was for her son to stay engaged with online learning, so she began thinking how she could make her own classroom more engaging. How could she reach and keep her virtual learners engaged? Answering this question is where her hootworthy teaching strategy arose. 

She remembered her hometown puppet show as a child, how interested she was in the puppetry arts, and how excited the drama made her. She thought of her son’s fascination with YouTube, fantasy, pretend, and stories. Her idea then came to life. Ms. Shuman decided her class needed one more student who lived in monster city, her puppet, Sparkle. 

Ms. Shuman introduced Sparkle to her class as a multilingual learner, like them. She also let the students know Sparkle was very shy because she wasn’t very confident in her English, so Sparkle would talk to her, and Ms. Shuman would translate. The students immediately took to Sparkle. She truly shined as the star of the class. Sparkle would participate in many of the activities the students did; however, as Sparkle would sometimes get stuck on an activity, the students would help Sparkle complete it. She sometimes brought an item to class to discuss or hyped the students up to get ready for class. 

Listen to hear the full story...

Hootworthy: The Podcast That Gives a Hoot
We spotlight the students and faculty of GCA and the stories that deserve to be heard.

Watch full episodes on YouTube or learn more at georgiacyber.org/hootworthy.

Follow, subscribe, and share. Every story deserves a spotlight.

Send us Fan Mail

Did you know that GCA Champions don’t just rise up and aim high… they soar!?  They keep on soaring after graduation too, like GCA alumni, Damacia Howard!  Damacia graduated in May 2021 after having attended GCA since the 6th grade!  She is headed to Georgia State University this fall with plans to study film, art history, or really anything art related.  Her recent hootworthy accomplishment is being crowned Miss Georgia Teen 2021 at the National American Miss Pageant this July.  While she is currently enjoying the pleasure of her Miss Georgia Teen title, she looks forward to crowning the next Miss Georgia Teen in 2022.

The National American Miss Pageant consisted of three categories: interview, introduction, and gown.  Six judges scored each category and tallied up the numbers to calculate the winner.  During the interview portion, she had to answer one question from each of the judges.  Her most memorable question was about how she spent her summer serving as a camp counselor.  The introduction piece was a brief 30-second speech to the crowd which displayed her poise and confidence.  The final category had the young ladies sport a formal gown. 

This was not the first pageant Damacia has competed in.  She entered her first pageant in 2015, and she has participated in multiple pageants since including National American Miss and Miss Teen USA.  One could say she is quite the pageant veteran.  She has found pageants to be a fun hobby and her schooling with GCA gave her the opportunity to compete in pageants, all while staying on top of her education.  Damacia loves to travel, so she initially started competing in pageants because state winners traveled to national pageant competitions, and around the country for national winners.  She was also looking for ways to pay for college, so scholarship prizes were a draw as well!

In 2016, she won the preteen title for National American Miss and was able to take a trip to California to compete in the national competition.  She did not win, but she did place in the top 10 in the country!  This time around, the national competition is in Orlando, Florida.  She heads there in November with hopes to place in the top 10 or better.  The winner of nationals receives many prizes, which are about 2 pages long, including scholarships and sponsorship gifts, as well as traveling the country to state pageants as the National American Miss winner.

On top of Damacia’s pageant efforts, she also started her own non-profit during the pandemic last year called LegendaryGyrl.  Her company aims to honor young women who are serving in their communities.  She sends them gift boxes and inducts them as Legendary Gyrls celebrating their service. For the initial year, most of the Legendary Gyrls were young ladies that Damacia knew throughout her community who were volunteering; however, as the organization grows, the goal is to have a committee take nominations and select one Legendary Gyrl each month, and award one scholarship per year.  You can find more information about her nonprofit at legendarygyrl.org.

We are so proud of Damacia’s pageant win, and we know her #GCAFAM is rooting her on at nationals in November!  Keep soaring, Damacia!

Hootworthy: The Podcast That Gives a Hoot
We spotlight the students and faculty of GCA and the stories that deserve to be heard.

Watch full episodes on YouTube or learn more at georgiacyber.org/hootworthy.

Follow, subscribe, and share. Every story deserves a spotlight.

Send us Fan Mail

We know that Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA) has some of the best teachers in the state of Georgia and we recently found out that it isn’t just the state of Georgia, but also the whole United States!  Ms. Lisa Clark has been teaching math for 8 years, and, surprisingly enough, always 9th grade. She has taught at GCA for only one semester so far, but has already helped show that GCA has some of the best teachers by receiving an incredible honor from one of her former students. 

Ms. Clark formed a bond with one of her previous students, Aaron, from her former school, through the years of teaching and supporting him. She noted that Aaron was a student who had a passion to learn; he pushed her to teach and challenge him throughout the class. She encouraged and assisted Aaron during the Governor’s Honors program process. As he continued his high school career, Aaron earned the STAR student award, while choosing her as STAR teacher. 

Then, Aaron notified Ms. Clark of an invitation only award he received based on high SAT and ACT scores, the US Presidential Scholars Program. She shared that the application process was incredibly detailed, but she was happy to support him once again! After the 6000-candidate pool, he then made it as one of the 600 semifinalists. From the 600 semifinalists, he was selected as one of the 161 finalists, representing one of two slots from Georgia. Aaron earned the title of a 2021 US Presidential Scholar.

Aaron nominated Ms. Clark for the prestigious honor of a 2021 U.S. Presidential Scholars Program’s Distinguished Teacher. Ms. Clark’s recognition also brought Georgia Cyber Academy some attention because her honored title is associated with her current school. She mentioned she was happy to earn the title with GCA next to her name because it is a testament to the caliber of teachers she has witnessed working here and the support she has received from training, colleagues, leadership, and more.  

A favorite memory at GCA so far has been, ironically enough, a student of hers also named Aaron! He reminded her so much of her other Aaron in the way he asked great questions, stayed engaged, and pushed her beyond what she was teaching. He went from not passing the previous semester to earning an A the next. He even accepted her recommendation to try honors math! When asked why the dramatic change, Aaron mentioned that he realized he still needs to do things that he is not interested in, to get to the things he does want to do—what an insight at such a young age! 

She could not praise the support she has had enough during her GCA journey thus far, showering her team, lead, and mentor with appreciation throughout the interview. She has felt so validated by her leadership and coworkers and strives to validate her students. You can find her teaching Honors/Gifted Algebra 1 as a US Presidential Scholars Program’s Distinguished Teacher. 

Please find the entire list of US Presidential Scholars Program’s Distinguished Teachers here.

You can also find more information regarding the US Presidential Scholars Program here. 

>>>>>>>

Do you have a GCA Hootworthy story? We would love to hear about it! Reach out to us here: https://www.georgiacyber.org/hootworthy

Check out the full interview on our Youtube: https://youtu.be/LbV9P526kCI

Enjoy Podcasts? Listen to the full interview and subscribe to keep up to date with more GCA Hootworthy stories here: https://gcahootworthy.buzzsprout.com

Hootworthy: The Podcast That Gives a Hoot
We spotlight the students and faculty of GCA and the stories that deserve to be heard.

Watch full episodes on YouTube or learn more at georgiacyber.org/hootworthy.

Follow, subscribe, and share. Every story deserves a spotlight.

Send us Fan Mail

Alaina is a rising 6th grader at Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA). This was her first year with GCA, and attending here has already made quite an impact on her! She is now an entrepreneur thanks to some inspiration she received while completing a science project that was assigned by her teacher Mr. Anderson. With the help of her mom, she launched her ideas into her own business: STEM Powered Kits.

Alaina says she wants to encourage thinking, learning, and tinkering. She came up with the name "STEM Powered Kits" because the acronym STEM is recognizable worldwide, and the kits challenge the maker to use science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to build the product. The GCA science assignment that inspired her business venture was creating an electric circuit. Alaina wanted to do a video instead of a slideshow or a diagram, so she recorded a video of herself demonstrating how to put one together.  After mom watched the video, she was so impressed by Alaina's voice and teaching ability that she thought this could be a great way for Alaina to use her talent; thus, the idea for STEM Powered Kits was born.

Alaina’s business is a product (STEM item) and a service (video tutorial) that ranges from elementary to high school ages. She sells boxes that include all the pieces one would need to build the item, instructions, and a link to a video tutorial on Alaina’s YouTube page demonstrating how to put the item together. She shared that her best seller is the solar powered race car, but she also has a wind powered car, lemon battery, and balloon car to name a few. They are always looking to add more products, and at the time of the interview, they had 14 items.

The business has been open for roughly 2 months and has already gained interest from others. To name a few, she has interviewed with The Creative Coast and WTOC, and partnered with Decatur Makers—a virtual stem program for girls, supplying their program and teaching some classes. She is grateful for GCA and how this all came about from an assignment, and she hopes to inspire the next set of innovators with her business.

She mentioned she enjoys going to GCA, and one of her favorite parts is not having to get up early to catch the bus. Please see the information below on how to connect with Alaina on social media and visit her business to pick up one of your Stem Powered Kits today!

Social media: @StemPoweredKits

Website: www.stempoweredkits.com

Discount code for GCA: GCAFAM15

Do you have a 🦉 Hootworthy story? We would love to hear about it! Reach out to us here: https://www.georgiacyber.org/hootworthy

Check out the full interview on our Youtube ▶ channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIRo1BvMTMU5kJU-drKJMWec8rtmCagEF

Enjoy Podcasts? 🎧 Listen to the full interview and subscribe to keep up to date with more GCA Hootworthy stories here: https://gcahootworthy.buzzsprout.com

Go GCA Champions!

Website: GeorgiaCyber.org
Facebook: @GCAchampions
Instagram: @GCAchampions
Twitter: @GCAchampions

#WeBringSchoolToYou​
#RiseAimSoar​
#GCAchampions​

Hootworthy: The Podcast That Gives a Hoot
We spotlight the students and faculty of GCA and the stories that deserve to be heard.

Watch full episodes on YouTube or learn more at georgiacyber.org/hootworthy.

Follow, subscribe, and share. Every story deserves a spotlight.

Send us Fan Mail

We recently interviewed Peyton J., a rising 8th grader who has attended Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA) for 5 years.  He came on our GCA Hootworthy Podcast to discuss his acting career which started when he was only 5 years old!  Peyton began with theatre and did a few commercials, but once he experienced film and television, he put his time and efforts there and has found success.  He has mainly performed dramatic roles and you can find him in the following films:

• Nobody’s Fool (2018) as Junior
• First Christmas (2020) as Drew,
• Respect (2021) as Young Cecil Franklin

The above list is just a sample of the roles he has performed.  So far, he says his biggest role is the current project he is working on in New Orleans and the details of it must remain confidential at this time, he can share that its release date is most likely next year and will air on Epix. 

Peyton expects to be filming in New Orleans for 6 weeks, but being in a temporary remote location has not stopped him from being able to keep up with school at GCA—even exceling as an honor roll student.  He has a dedicated school trailer on set where he can complete coursework, attend live classes, and communicate with teachers in between filming.  He appreciates and enjoys how GCA has enabled him to pursue his acting career and academics simultaneously because he can do it from anywhere.  He mentions how accommodating his teachers are, and how he feels he is not missing out on content.  He is so thankful for how helpful his teachers are, and he credits his mom for helping him stay on task with keeping up with school and his busy acting schedule at the same time

Peyton wants to continue acting and also plans to pursue writing, hopes to produce music, and eventually become a director.  He likes painting and particularly likes digital art.  Peyton loves how nice all the teachers and staff are at GCA and he would like to shout out his teacher Ms. Adams. He suggests any aspiring young actors should follow their heart and consider GCA as a great school choice because of how helpful and accommodating it has been for him.

Do you want to learn even more about Peyton or keep up with his acting career? Check out his website and social media below:

Peytonjackson.net

Imdb.me/peytonjackson

IG @iampeytonj

FB Peyton Jackson

Hootworthy: The Podcast That Gives a Hoot
We spotlight the students and faculty of GCA and the stories that deserve to be heard.

Watch full episodes on YouTube or learn more at georgiacyber.org/hootworthy.

Follow, subscribe, and share. Every story deserves a spotlight.