Leila Kubesch didn't so much give a voice to her students as teach them they already had one.

The seventh- and eighth-grade teacher at Norwood Middle School had tasked her students with putting their dreams down on paper, but a student confided in her that "people like us don't dream."

Then another student told her something similar.

Kubesch, in her 20th year as a teacher and her fourth at Norwood Middle, has been named the 2020 Ohio Teacher of the Year by the state Department of Education. She credits her response to those two students, and the work that followed by her classes, with bringing about the recognition.

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She teaches English as a second language, and most of her students' native language is Spanish.

After her students told her they couldn't dream, in the 2017-18 school year, Kubesch secured a grant for a performing arts project. They created a display, laminating their dreams and hanging them on burlap sacks, with cutouts of hands forming a border. The display stretched more than 100 feet, and a special exhibit featuring the project opened at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Downtown Cincinnati.

A poster by the exhibit explained how burlap was used in North Africa – as clothing, rugs and sacks. The cutout hands "represent action."

Students drew Martin Luther King Jr., and some translated his "I Have a Dream" speech into Spanish.

"Dreaming is not just for the rich, the willing, and the supported," Kubesch wrote for the exhibit.

But even an exhibit at the Freedom Center didn't draw the attention for her students that Kubesch had hoped for. She alerted media outlets to the project. Some didn't respond. Some did but then never showed.

She logged the calls she made: 164. She didn't tell her students how hard she was having to work to bring them positive recognition.

Still, her students could sense something amiss.

So Kubesch again started brainstorming. If the media ignored them, they'd create their own means of production. And with funding from grants, her students launched their own talk show.

Each student was tasked with conducting 10 interviews with community members last school year. The interviews are recorded and will soon be published to a website, Kubesch said.

Guests have included a Japanese-American as students were learning about U.S. internment camps during World War II, a pediatric surgeon and a transgender person.

One talk lasted two hours. Another included local firefighters, who had to cut out early to respond to a call.

"What I teach my students is really how to make lemonade out of lemons," Kubesch said. "It's teaching them to dream big and rise above any challenge."

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DeMaria planned to surprise Norwood Middle School staff and students Friday morning . State and local government officials planned to attend.

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