Her Story
Leila Kubesch has committed her whole career to high-need schools. She says her mission is to give students in those schools the same kind of empowering opportunities that young people get in affluent communities, and that a district’s limited budget should never limit educational excellence. She earned a bachelor’s degree in foreign languages at the University of Kentucky, studied in Salamanca, Spain, and holds two master’s degrees (including one in educational leadership), along with National Board Certification (2003). She taught Japanese, French and Spanish in the Lafayette School Corporation from 1992 to 2008, taught at Princeton City Schools, and has taught at Norwood since 2016. She was the 2020 Ohio Teacher of the Year.
Kubesch starts by getting to know students and their families. She sends a handwritten postcard to every student in the school, and because many families cannot leave work for conferences, she offers to visit homes in the late afternoon or on weekends. The walls of her classroom spill into the hallway with a “Wall of Fame” of student work and photos, which she displays only with permission, and families come to school events to find them. She often brings in community guests, such as a Japanese American haiku master who spent a day with English learners and their classmates, and students wrote at least ten poems each in English or their home language.
She says her style has shifted toward helping students rise above limiting beliefs and dream big. She completed a yoga teacher certification and now builds self-care into class time. She says the extra minutes did not cost her academic content: her Spanish class covered more chapters than the year before, and attendance and classroom culture improved.
Beyond the Classroom
Her students lead large service-learning projects that start from needs they identify themselves. One group wanted to fix hunger before lunch, so they researched breakfast in the classroom, built a budget, presented to the superintendent and piloted the program. Kubesch won an NEA End Hunger Fellowship to support it. The pilot raised the number of students eating breakfast by more than 80 percent, and every participant reported being able to focus until lunch. Another group wanted a voice, and launched the televised youth talk show “Youth Voices in Greater Cincinnati” and a parallel show, “Voices Without Borders,” for students who prefer their native language. A Martha Holden Jennings Foundation grant updated the studio, and the program won the Ohio Education Association’s Media for Public Service Award.
Her students also created a Dream Project, which earned a special exhibit at the Freedom Center Underground Museum in Cincinnati, and a free library, stocked with community-donated books, that runs along the school’s windowsills. During the pandemic she created Chow & Tell, a teen cooking show produced with a local cable station, which Cincinnati Magazine named a 2021 Best of the City. She has also won grants from the Teaching Tolerance program, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation and Penguin Random House, speaks at conferences on engaging families and writing grants, and created a Teacher Fellow Program to train other Ohio educators in high-need schools.
Philosophy Into Practice
For English learners Kubesch uses quarterly DataMap checks and the end-of-year Ohio English Language Proficiency Assessment, plus continuous classroom assessments and an online standards log to find gaps. She reports that her students advance a level each year, including some who arrived with no formal schooling or no English.
When her district reopened in hybrid mode during the pandemic, she asked students what they could do rather than what they couldn’t. They proposed an arcade theme, so she covered desks in laminated game-themed paper and students decorated the room with discarded wires and game controllers. When she realized that shut-off water fountains were leaving students tired and with headaches, she surprised students with personalized water bottles during outdoor porch visits with their families, and the Chow & Tell cooking program grew out of students telling her they wanted to learn to cook.
“My role as an educator is to help students develop leadership skills, become global and civic-minded, and break away from limiting beliefs.”Leila Kubesch
In Her Own Words
“Youth are often better versed in what needs they are lacking than the adults around them.”Leila Kubesch
“The limited budget of a district should not impact educational excellence.”Leila Kubesch
“Rather than focusing on what we could not do, I asked my students for suggestions on what we could.”Leila Kubesch
What Others Said
“I am nominating Leila Kubesch for her service to high-needs communities.”Amber Sami, nominator, colleague
“Leila not only connects youth with quality learning opportunities, she also empowers them to dream big, transcend perceived limitations, and see in action that their work can change the world.”Amber Sami, nominator, colleague
“She is an outstanding educator and deserves to be in the National Teachers’ Hall of Fame.”Mary A. Ronan, superintendent, Norwood City School District
“She is a tireless advocate for her students, is an outstanding teacher and great role model for our children.”Troy Darwin, parent
“She made our lessons fun and I aspire to be like her someday.”Laura Williams, former student