National Teacher of the Year helps diverse students and their families thrive in rural Tennessee

When Ali Aglan joined Missy Testerman's 2nd grade class, his family had just moved from Egypt to rural East Tennessee, where his parents now run an Italian restaurant. Coming home from school one day in the town of Rogersville, he told his mother that no one would talk to him. "He said, ‘I have no friends there.’ He was crying. It broke my heart," Rabab Aglan said.

So she called the teacher. “I don't know what she did, but a few days later he came home and said, ‘Now