News & Updates

A mighty GCEE CONGRATULATIONS to Suzanne McWhorter from Bleckley County Elementary for being selected as the September Featured Teacher. Suzanne, an attendee of GCEE’s summer institute for elementary teachers, is being recognized for her ability to deliver fantastic economics lessons to her students and her desire to always improve herself as an educator. 

Congratulations to Ivory Roberson from Jonesboro High School (Clayton County) for being named GCEE’s “Featured Teacher” for the month of August. Ivory is being recognized for her incredible teaching skills and ability to make econ come alive for her students. Ivory will receive an Amazon gift card and signed GCEE certificate to recognize her exemplary work. Congratulations, Ivory!

Hats off to our 2021 South Georgia Econ Games Champions. A team of amazing students from Westside Elementary in Coffee County took home the top prize in the 4th grade division while a team of amazing students from Lanier County Elementary took home top honors in the 5th grade division. Congratulations to all of the 4th and 5th grade students who participated in this year’s exciting event.

What’s better than buying econ-themed children’s literature books to share with teachers? Writing your own econ-themed children’s literature book to share with teachers! Earl & Starla Want All the Fishy Treats will be released to the world in early June. 

Congratulations to the team of students from Sandy Creek High School for taking home first place in the 2021 Georgia Economics Challenge – David Ricardo Division. The team now moves on to the National Finals in May.

Congratulations to Amber Adams from Troup County High School for being named GCEE’s “Featured Teacher” for the month of April. Amber is being recognized for her dedication to finding new ways to teach economics in creative ways that meet the needs of each of her students. Amber will receive an Amazon gift card and signed GCEE certificate to recognize her exemplary work. Congratulations, Amber!

Excited to announce the five state finalists for the 2021 Adam Smith Division Econ Challenge Competition. Teams from Chattahoochee High, Denmark High, Gwinnett School of Math, Science and Technology, South Forsyth High and Woodstock High will be competing on Saturday, April 17th to see who takes home 1st place for the state.

All of us at GCEE are thrilled to recognize Laura Lampron from Dunwoody High School (DeKalb County) as one of our “2021 Georgia Economics Teachers of the Year.” Laura, a high school AP economics teacher, is an amazing educator who is always striving to better herself in ways that will benefit each of her students. We will be formally honoring Laura at our Annual Meeting in the spring. Congratulations!

GCEE Executive Director, Mike Raymer, was recently named the National Association of Economic Educator’s very first Governance Advisor. As an ex-officio member of the NAEE Executive board, Mike will serve as a liaison between the board and various NAEE committees. Mike looks forward to serving in this newly created role as he knows how valuable NAEE is to educators across the country.

Congratulations to Libby Aldridge from Brooks County High School for being named GCEE’s “Featured Teacher” for the month of January. Libby is being recognized for her outstanding work and for her ongoing commitment to making her classroom come alive for her students each and every day. Libby will receive an Amazon gift card and signed GCEE certificate to recognize her exemplary work.

Congratulations to Tom Brodnax for being named GCEE’s “Featured Teacher” for the month of December. Tom, an economics teacher at Toombs County High School in Lyons, is being recognized for exemplary work in the classroom and his dedication to making himself a better educator each semester. Tom will receive an Amazon gift card and signed GCEE certificate to recognize his outstanding work.

Major GCEE congratulations to the team of students from Hahira Middle School who took home 1st place in the FALL 2020 Stock Market Game competition! The students turned an initial $100,000 investment into a final portfolio total of $153,166.57. Thank you to our friends at Invesco, the Primerica Foundation, and Delta Community Credit Union for the support that allowed us to conduct another successful Stock Market Game for students across Georgia.

Congratulations to Laura Perry for being named GCEE’s “Featured Teacher” for the month of November. Laura, a middle school teacher at Rehoboth Middle School in Griffin, is being recognized for exemplary work in the classroom and her dedication to making herself a better educator each semester. Laura will receive an Amazon gift card and signed GCEE certificate to recognize her outstanding work.

Congratulations to Nancy Romeo of Johns Creek Elementary school in Forsyth County for being the 3,000th teacher we’ve served in 2020! We were thrilled to honor Nancy with a $300 Amazon gift card and look forward to seeing her at future training sessions. Thank you to each of the other 2,999 teachers we have been fortunate enough to work with since the start of 2020. Plenty more to come.

Congratulations to Don Riggins for being named GCEE’s “Featured Teacher” for the month of August. Don, a high school economics teacher at Central High School in Carrollton, is being recognized for his ability to consistently make economics and personal finance come alive for his students in effective ways and for his ongoing creativity in the classroom. Don will receive an Amazon gift card and signed certificate to recognize his outstanding work. 

Special tip of the GCEE hat to students from Space, Time, Community Homeschool, North Hall Middle, and Decatur High for taking home top honors in Georgia’s spring-2020 InvestWrite competition.

InvestWrite is an innovative national writing competition offered exclusively to teachers and students participating in The Stock Market Game each semester. The program adds a critical thinking component to help reinforce concepts learned in the classroom and helps students gain a deeper understanding of the market.

GCEE was honored to spend time speaking with Atlanta City Councilman Andre Dickens about economic equity, civil rights, silver rights, and public education during yesterday’s engaging webinar. Councilman Dickens shared his thoughts on how to include all students in the educational process and his views on the ongoing push for economic opportunity in communities throughout Atlanta and Georgia. 

Congratulations to University of West Georgia Center for Economic Education & Financial Literacy Director Kim Holder for being named the Georgia Council’s 2020 Center Director of the Year. Kim is a tireless advocate for K-12 teachers in her region and regularly promotes professional development opportunities designed to help teachers teach economics and financial literacy. Kim also connects teachers and business leaders in her community in order to help students learn more about future occupations and meaningful work pathways. 

Congratulations to Austin Green for being named GCEE’s “Featured Teacher” for the month of May. Austin, a teacher at Milton High School in Milton, GA is an outstanding AP Micro/Macro teacher and current University of Delaware grad student.   Austin will receive an Amazon gift card and signed certificate to recognize his outstanding work.  

GCEE is proud to recognize Dr. David Martin as the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award winner. From time to time, there are Georgians who have made such outstanding contributions throughout their lives to advance economic and personal finance education in our state that the Georgia Council on Economic Education believes they are truly deserving of special recognition.  David Martin is perhaps the person most deserving of this award.  In addition to leading the Georgia Council for 35 years, David has been recognized nationwide as a leader and someone who literally spent his entire professional career promoting economic and personal finance education.  Thank you David Martin and congratulations!

GCEE is proud to recognize Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) as the recipient of the 2020 William J. Van Landingham Commitment to Education Award.  GPB has an extensive education arm that reaches tens of thousands of preschool – 12th grade students every year through digital resources and face to face training.  GPB continues to be a valued partner of the Georgia Council for workshop delivery and creation of online resources such as the award winning Lights, Camera, Budget!  Thank you Georgia Public Broadcasting and congratulations!

GCEE was honored to be joined by Nadia Theodore (Consul General of Canada in Atlanta) for a fantastic webinar today. 48 middle and high school educators had the opportunity to hear the Consul General speak on a range of topics including the U.S./Canada trade partnership, the duties of a Consul General, the recently ratified USMCA trade agreement, and the Canadian response to the COVID-19 crisis. 

Congratulations to the team of students from the Atlanta International School for taking home 1st place in the spring, 2020 Stock Market Game. Amazingly, they turned an initial $100,000 investment portfolio into a final total of $253,986 during the ten-week competition. Hats off to the more than 20,000 students and teachers who participated this spring! 

Major kudos going out to the team of students from Starr’s Mill High School for bringing home 1st place in the 2020 Georgia Economics Challenge/David Ricardo Division. The team will be competing in next month’s online National Economics Challenge against schools from all across the country. 

GCEE delivered its very first “Virtual Learning” webinar on March 25th to an engaged group of 68 teachers from across the state. The focus of the meeting was the recent fiscal and monetary policy actions taken by the federal government and Federal Reserve Bank . Teachers received numerous teaching tips, strategies and web links that will help them reach their students during these interesting times. GCEE plans to offer at least two webinars per week through the end of the school year. 

Super huge GCEE congratulations to the team from Len Lastinger Elementary in Tift County for bringing home 1st place in the highly competitive  2020 Tifton Econ Games (4th grade division). 

Members of the GCEE team and Center Directors from Georgia State, Georgia Southern, and the University of Georgia joined a group of educators from around the country at the 2020 National Association of Economic Educators (NAEE) Conference in Jacksonville, Florida last week. The Georgia Council was awarded two NAEE Curriculum Awards and Associate Director Chris Cannon took home the 2020 NAEE Rising Star Award. University of West Georgia Center Director Kim Holder was honored with the 2020 NAEE Technology Award.   

If you’re going to deliver a workshop focusing on Georgia’s booming film industry why not do it at one of the largest movie studio’s in the state? Hats off to everyone at Blackhall Studios for being such great hosts to a terrific group of teachers that trekked from far and wide to attend. Amazing guest speakers, terrific industry insight and a tour of multiple sound stages all made for a wonderful day of learning.  

A group of high school teachers spent the day at GPB learning more about the rapidly changing media landscape, GPB’s funding model, their educational programming initiatives and the impact the film industry continues to have on GPB’s ability to rent studio space on a regular basis. The teachers were also given the opportunity to tour some of GPB’s television and radio studios.  

Teaching legend Martha Rush came all the way to Atlanta to deliver two outstanding workshops to a number of lucky high school econ teachers from throughout the metro area. Ms. Rush, a nationally recognized teacher and author, shared many of her most successful teaching strategies, lessons and classroom tips during two workshops she presented for GCEE.  Special thanks to our friends at the Atlanta Fed for hosting the first of the two workshops. 

Congratulations to Christie Lehman for being named GCEE’s “Featured Teacher” for the month of January. Christie, a teacher at Langston Road Elementary in Houston County, consistently makes learning relevant, exciting, and enjoyable for her students by incorporating innovative teaching strategies that make economics and personal finance fun subjects to study.  Christie will receive an Amazon gift card and signed certificate that recognizes her fantastic achievement. 

GCEE recently convened an all-star group of middle/high school teachers, a college professor and an education specialist from the Atlanta Fed to begin work on a new 6th & 7th grade econ workshop that will be rolled out in March, 2020. The new workshop, which will focus on standard of living, international trade, trade barriers, and economic systems, will be made available to any/all 6th & 7th grade teachers throughout Georgia in the coming months. 

Proud moment for the GCEE team as Associate Director Chris Cannon was just named the 2019 National Association of Economic Educators (NAEE) “Rising Star Award” winner. This highly prestigious award is given each year to an individual who has been a member of the NAEE network for seven years or less. The purpose of the award is to identify someone who has “hit the ground running” and made extraordinary contributions to economic education programs or services early in his or her career in economic education. Congratulations all around to Chris!

GCEE took a group of middle and high school teachers to the Georgia Poultry Lab in Gainesville to learn more about the poultry industry’s impact on Georgia’s economy. A few key takeaways…the poultry industry makes up 50% of Georgia’s overall agriculture sector, Georgia leads the nation in broiler production, Georgia poultry farmers produce 31 million pounds of chicken and more than seven million table eggs on an average day! Thank you to all of our friends at the Georgia Poultry Lab for the amazing hospitality.

GCEE took a group of econ teachers to the UPS SMART Hub for a tour of one of the most technologically advanced sorting facilities in the world. The teachers learned that more than 100,000 packages are processed every hour in the 1.2 million square feet facility located on Fulton Industrial Blvd. They also learned about employment opportunities at UPS, the company’s commitment to environmental sustainability, and its energy saving practices that are cornerstones to their approach to business.   

Teachers in Savannah were the first to experience the Georgia Council’s new Financial Literacy for Middle Grades workshop this week   This workshop delivers content and new lesson plans written by Georgia teachers designed to engage middle school students and help them understand personal financial literacy from a variety of angles. The Georgia Council will be delivering this workshop far and wide in the coming months.