Redefining Inclusion with Brandi Dozier-Muhammad: The LIFE Program in a Virtual School

Inclusion is not only about access. It is about meaningful participation, skill development, and helping students grow with purpose. In a virtual school, that work requires intentional design, flexibility, and a focus on the individual.

In this episode of GCA Unmuted: Voices of Virtual Education, we’re joined by Brandi Dozier-Muhammad, a Family and Consumer Sciences teacher in the LIFE Program at Georgia Cyber Academy. Brandi shares how the LIFE Program supports students with disabilities in developing independence, life skills, and confidence in a virtual environment.

The conversation explores how inclusion is approached through courses like Family and Consumer Sciences, how instruction is adapted to meet a range of needs, and how student voice and real-world application shape learning. Brandi also reflects on what meaningful inclusion looks like in practice and addresses common assumptions about whether virtual schools can support students with exceptional needs.

This episode is part of GCA Unmuted’s ongoing documentation of how virtual schools design inclusive environments that support all learners.

Thanks for listening to GCA Unmuted: Voices of Virtual Education, a podcast documenting how virtual school works in practice at Georgia Cyber Academy.

Each episode features educators, staff, and leaders sharing real stories and systems that support teaching and learning in a virtual environment.

Learn more about the podcast and explore past episodes at:
 https://www.georgiacyber.org/about/unmuted

You can also watch full episodes and highlights on our YouTube channel:
 https://www.youtube.com/@GCAchampions

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the market for the stories and strategies that show how George Cyber Academy makes online learning work. Inclusion in education isn't just about access, it's about meaningful participation, purpose, and growth. And at GTA, the Life Program is reimagining what inclusion looks like in a virtual space. I'm joined today by Brandy Dodger Mohammed, a family and consumer sciences teacher in GTA's Life Department, who brings real-world skills of personalized support and heart into every lesson, and helps students with exceptional needs thrive in our online model. We'll explore how the LIFE program supports students with disabilities and gaining independence and life skills, how inclusion is approached through electives like FACT, and what it means to build a truly student-centered virtual classroom. Brandy, thanks so much for coming on. First question: Can you share a story that captures the heart of your work with students in the life program?

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Yes, and thank you for having me. Absolutely. It's hard to choose just one because I mean it's it's been life-changing for me as an educator, not only to be at GCA, but to be in the life department. But I would say the one that immediately comes to the forefront of my mind was my first year here. And I had a student who didn't necessarily come on camera. She would private chat me with her answers or anything she wanted to add to the class. And I could tell she was an artist because anytime we worked in the near pod, uh, or anytime we had an assignment where they could use their um manipulatives or anything at home, I could tell from her work that she was an artist. And, you know, I said, Well, would you share some of your art? You're really good. And she said, You know, I don't know. I'm really shy. And so I said, Well, can I share it? And I won't tell who who did it. And so she said, Okay, you can do that. And so I did. And the, you know, the the chat just lit up with praise for her artwork. And then from there, we, you know, whatever we did, she started to get more engaged in the class. She started coming on camera, she started, you know, helping to support her classmates. And then she said to me, she said, Miss Brandy, I had given up on school. Um, she was a senior, and she said I was, you know, not wanting to keep going because it just seemed like it was too hard and I wasn't going to be good at it. But you helped me to believe in myself. And we still keep in touch to this day. Uh, she calls to give me an update on you know how her life is going, but that really stuck with me because we don't know what's on the other side of the camera. And especially if the students, you know, don't have their cameras, we don't know. And it just really touched me uh to say, okay, you you don't know who or what might be happening on the other side of the camera. So keep encouraging, keep trying, you know, you know, just keep letting them know that they matter, that they count, that they're special, and you know, all of their unique ways. So that one really sticks out.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Yeah, what a smart idea, too, for you to say, hey, I'll share it. You're not sharing it. That's a great idea. Uh, gets it at gets the work out there without the maybe potential embarrassment that they may feel or whatever. How cool. So what do you think that story says then about the kind of inclusion, like making sure that all the students feel included? What do you think that that story says then about what the life program is aiming to create, what you are trying to create in your classroom?

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Well, I would say um, first of all, I know I'm here and you invited me, and I appreciate and I'm thankful that I get this opportunity. Uh, but it definitely is a team work uh operation that we do in the life department. Um I'm in the electives area, um, but that gives me the opportunity to see the majority of students in our department on a daily basis and to you know see the growth that they have coming from their their content teachers uh with their literacy skills or with their math skills. Um it really is a team effort. And you know, from the administrators who put together, you know, the classes that we'll be doing every year, um, the applications that they're constantly making sure that we have access to. Um it, I mean, it really is the collaboration that we do uh with each other, it's a team effort. And you know, it really speaks to what GCA is doing with the life department and how they're making sure that they have access to you know everything that they need to be successful um here in school.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

So for those who aren't familiar, then what is the life program at GCA and how does it serve students?

SPEAKER_02 5:51

So the life department is for students with intellectual uh disabilities, and um it's not just special education. Uh, yes, we have a special education department here at GCA, but with our intellectual disabilities, um, sometimes uh it's more of a challenge, and so they get more personalized care and education um with the life department. Um, it's a smaller group that we work with, um with the content teachers. They have a pair of professionals who are, excuse me, assisting them as well. Um, but we not only focus on you know education, but making sure they have life skills. We're teaching them how to um their personal hygiene, how to pay for their groceries, how to um order at a restaurant, how to buy movie tickets. So the everyday things that you know people might do and not even think about that they're doing, uh, we're structuring our classes and our content to help give them life skills that way.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

That makes sense. So, how does the family and consumer sciences, the class you teach, how does that fit into the life curriculum then?

SPEAKER_02 7:14

It's like a like a perfect puzzle feat. It really fits. Um, for those who might not know, family consumer sciences, uh formerly known as home economics. So if you grew up, you know, 30 years ago in school, you might have seen home economics. And then we had a name change uh in the late 90s, and we became family and consumer sciences. So all of those life skills, um, the cooking skills, the nutrition skills, um, the human development, family study skills, uh, budgeting skills, um, all of those are fit perfectly into the life department because it is about life, um, how to go about your day-to-day with, you know, um taking care of your family. Um, these are, you know, many of our students are seniors or in the the quote-unquote transition part where they'll be graduating soon from GCA. And so they are learning to live um on their own. And all of the things that goes along with that, you know, making sure that they know how to pay bills, um, making sure that they can, you know, shop and find a deal when they're shopping so that they're not just you know using their money without thinking about it. And Family Consumer Sciences naturally does that on a you know day-to-day basis with anyone, and then to have it tailored for the life department, it it really is a perfect fit.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

So, on top of that, what sort of maybe strategies or approaches are you using in your virtual classroom then to make sure that your students are understanding the content, learning the content, but then also like that they're even able to access the content?

SPEAKER_02 9:12

We do a lot of labs or what we call labs in effect. Same thing you if you were in a science class and you would do uh a biology lab or chemistry lab. We do family consumer science labs. And so if we are studying um, for instance, nutrition and making sure that they know how much uh sodium to look for on a menu, um, how much fat, how much sugar is in a drink uh from Starbucks. So they're actually you know doing the labs. We'll put out a list of things that they'll need, um, maybe a Gatorade, a bottle of water, um, a cup of milk, and then we're reading the labels to see how much sugar is in there, and then you know, having them go through that process, and then actually saying, okay, so what's the best choice for you if you're trying not to eat or drink so more so much salt or sugar? What's the best process? And so they go through it, and they will, you know, go through the menu and look, go through the ingredients, and they're like, Oh, maybe I only need two slices of pizza instead of the whole pizza, whole pizza, but it it really helps, and so we even go online uh to a lot of the restaurants, popular restaurants that every teenager probably loves, and they know how to look for the menu to see what they would like to order, they know how to look for the nutrition content to see if they should order it. So we we take it step by step and just build, you know, from previous lessons until they are comfortable, you know, practicing that and showing and sharing, you know, what they're learning.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

That's great. It sounds like the labs are a great way to not only get the content, but then like some practical implications, applications with it.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

What's a uh what's a recent lab or just one of your favorite labs to do with your students throughout the year that you feel like most of them like really enjoy? Can you think of one?

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah, it's it's the pizza lab. It's the pizza. Um, we start out with um, I wear different hats for uh each day of my classes, and one of their favorites is my pizza hat. And so it came about really organically the way that it happened. I had my pizza hat on, and one of the students said, Miss Randy, I dare you to order pizza wearing that hat. And so I did. I went into Domino's with the pizza hat on, had you know, my daughter to uh record, you know, videotape me, talk to the manager, so you know she knew up front and ordered the pizza and brought it back, uploaded it, and they just laughed, they enjoyed it so much. And then from there, you know, we took it a step further. Okay, so how many of you order pizza? Um, when you're ordering pizza, do you look at the nutritional value of the pizza? We looked at the sodium, we looked at the fat. Um, they even chose um what would build the best pizza nutritionally. So they have all this information, they have their lab uh sheets, and they're saying, okay, well, I can have spinach. Maybe I don't want to have three different kinds of meat because of the salt, maybe not three different kinds of cheese because of the salt. And then um, from there we made pizzas. We made our own pizzas at home and compared, you know, the nutritional value of both uh types of pizza. So it was really, really um an awesome lesson that we have repeated each year because they enjoy it so much, and it's pizza, so of course, teens love pizza, so it's something that they can really, you know, connect with the fact that it's pizza and they can make their own pizza.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Yeah, who doesn't like pizza?

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

What what do you think other schools or other programs, virtual or not, could learn from the GCA life program and the the way that we do things here in the life program?

SPEAKER_02 13:55

It is such a wonderful experience to work in the life department. Um, number one, having the right people in the right place. Um, honestly, people who really want to be here, people who really want to see our students succeed. Um, it's a it's a labor of love, but we do it with smiles on our face. Our our teachers, I'm just like giving all kudos to them because um you realize that you're not just teaching for a test, you're not teaching for a grade, you're teaching for life, you're teaching for our students to be able to care for themselves, to survive in this world. So that puts a whole nother layer of responsibility on it, and I think the way uh that we're able to utilize technology to do that, uh, they're growing up in a technologically driven world. So many of them, you know, they are smartphone babies, they, you know, are as old as a smartphone. So they've always had uh smartphones or iPads or things right there at their fingertips. And so we're able to tap into that so that they can, oh, okay, this is just like how I move my apps on an iPad, or this is the same way I send a text message, you know, with near pods and different things like that. So it it really takes advantage of um something that they are using on a daily basis and seeing how they can use it for learning and how they can use it for life, really. That was not meant to be a play on words with the life part.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Is it is there is there anything um about like the way that life does things, whether the their systems or their supports that are in place here that you think other schools could also adopt to better serve their students with disabilities, whether these are virtual schools or traditional brick and mortar schools. Are there things we're doing here or whether they're systems that we have set up or specific strategies or things we're doing that you think, hey, these these other schools over here, whether they're virtual, whether they're brick and mortar, they could do these things to better serve their students with disabilities.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Yes. And I think um most of it comes from again with the teamwork with making sure that the the family is invested as well. I know in other schools um you might, and I don't want to put anybody else in the school down, but you have IEP meetings, but it's not at least I've never seen it done so in depth and so um detailed to make sure that the student is getting everything that they need, um, making sure if they need uh technology as part of their um assistive technology as part of their IEP program, uh, making sure that they have those items um available to them, making sure that the teachers are aware of all of the moving parts you know behind uh the IEP um meetings, making sure that everyone is in the know or aware of the students, um, and that we send them out all the time so that you know all of the teachers are aware, okay, this child needs this as a support. This child um might need this, and it really is it's like we we operate at GCA um in the life department as our own little microcosm of making sure these students have everything that they need and feel supported, um, even with our clubs that we have here in the life department, um, so that they are experiencing everything that anyone in the general ed population would. And so they they, yeah, I I know we hear continually from our students, from our parents, um, how much they love GCA, how much they love the life department, and just to see the students excited about school. Um, they, you know, don't have to, you know, many of our students tell me that, you know, Miss Brandy, I was bullied or I was, you know, mistreated at my school. They they don't have that problem here at GCA, and they continually bring that up and how much they appreciate and feel that they are fortunate to be able to be schooled in a positive environment. GCA really is a positive environment for their learning.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Sure. So that going off that positivity, is there something else you would say in your experience that has made GCA's approach unique uh in terms of the for this life program? Is there anything particularly unique about the way GCA operates their life program?

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Um, yes, I would say uh getting feedback from the teachers because we are the ones who are with our students daily and saying, okay, well, uh, this would help our students. And then we have administrators, okay, let's see if we can get that, you know, for our students. Or we notice um that this might not be something that we could use. And they're like, okay, well, what can we do? Um, they they listen to us, uh, they take our feedback. Um, our administrator, um, I don't want to name drop, but they do they work as a team and they do um the hard work, you know, behind the curtain that we don't see, so that it makes it easier for the teachers to deliver the mess uh the lessons, uh, to deliver, you know, the content so that we know that we're being effective. So it's sort of like both ways. We're getting the feedback from the students and the families, and then we're passing that on to the administrators who go to work and make it happen. And then the administrators give us, you know, what we need to be successful, and then we can in turn give it to our students and families.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Sure, that's great, and that's a key piece to think about the idea that you feel heard as a teacher when you go to administration about like, hey, here's some feedback, maybe we should do these things. And then now the parents feel listened to, you feel listened to, and then y'all are actually actually implementing the changes. That's fantastic. So this might get you fired up, Randy, but what would you say to somebody who doubts, you know what, you cannot have any meaningful learning, any meaningful change really happening online uh with a life program. But what would you say to someone who has a lot of doubts about that?

SPEAKER_02 21:31

Come to our classes. Come into our classes. Our students, um, yes, I am a teacher, but I am learning every day. All of our teachers are learning every day because our students, um, they are just phenomenal. They are phenomenal, and they exceed expectations every day, not just with me, uh, but with their content teachers, where we Might have, you know, a standard that says they should be able to do this and they are exceeding it and you know just blowing it out of the water, or they are sharing different ways that they've used their lessons in you know real everyday life. And they're putting in the practice and applying it to you know what's going on with them. And yes, it is possible, it's very possible. Um, and you you would just have to come and see. I wouldn't even argue with them, okay? But come and watch. Come and watch how wonderful they are.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Come and see. I love it. Uh, actions speak louder than words, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

So leave us leave us with this. What then is the biggest lesson that you've learned uh as a teacher in the life program, especially in our online environment? Uh, and maybe it is you mentioned like uh these students uh blew away your expectations. They're capable of so much more. Uh maybe that was your biggest lesson, or maybe it's something else. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but what would you say is like, hey, this is something I've it doesn't have to be the biggest, maybe it's just a lesson or something that comes to mind. But as an online teacher in this life program at GCA, what would you say you've you've learned? Big lesson.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Oh, that that would be the big lesson because um our students, again, they have intellectual disabilities, and sometimes um people stop seeing the student and they just notice the disability. And to have my students uh not only show that no, I I'm more than this, I can do more than that, I'm more capable than the world might see me as. It means a lot. And I've had uh students, this is my fifth year here at GCA, and I've had students who um might have been told, oh, well, uh they are nonverbal, or maybe they're not able to do different things. And and I'm like, no, they're talking in class. They are right here. They greet me every day, they're telling me what they ate for lunch. So it's looking beyond the disability, seeing the students, seeing the child for who they are and you know who they want to become. That's been the most beautiful experience um since joining the life department.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

And that's fantastic. Yes, getting to experience that growth. I can't imagine. So here's today's big idea. When inclusion is intentional, creative, and supported, students of all abilities can grow, connect, and contribute in ways that truly matter, even in a virtual space. Thanks again to Brandy for joining us and sharing her passion and perspective. If this if this episode made you rethink inclusion or inspired your practice, be sure to subscribe and join us next time on GTA Unmuted for Voices of Virtual Education. Thanks, Brandy.