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Kids Read Now is a non-profit organization with a singular mission: to eliminate learning loss for kindergarten through fifth grade students.
Kids Read Now partners with school districts to implement and manage summer and year-round reading programs that help kids maintain and improve their reading skills.
We help fulfill academic dreams by transforming your summer reading program and illuminating young minds. Our mission at Kids Read Now is to help fulfill the academic dreams of youngsters and their parents by helping raise literacy among students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
We work hard every day to give our customers the best programs to engage parents and keep kids growing during the summers, to keep them from falling victim to the summer slide. We also provide enrollment, participation, and satisfaction statistics in a real-time data portal that every parent and educator can access. In the fall, we analyze our students’ reading scores to see if they did better than non-participants.
At the heart of every academic dream is the ability to read. At Kids Read Now, we help fulfill those dreams.
Leib and his wife, Barb, wanted to address the sad fact that just 34% of fourth graders are proficient readers, and in poor, black, and brown communities that number is less than 29%. Creating a nationwide, scalable, affordable, evidence-based, program that can serve every family in America was their goal in creating Kids Read Now. Leib’s literacy roots run deep as his mother started a preschool neighborhood program in 1958 that grew to become a proven program used as the basis for Head Start. Leib is a serial entrepreneur. His prior firm, One Call Now, served 7,000 schools and districts, as well as tens of thousands of community and youth organizations, and Kids Read Now was built on the foundations of outreach to parents.
Barb began her post-secondary education as a classical piano major. After completing her Bachelor’s in Music, she completed her Master’s in Piano Pedagogy and Music Theory. Then she returned to college again and was certified as a classroom teacher, 1-8. Earning endorsements for Teaching Gifted Children K-12 and Teaching Reading K-12, she taught for many years in a variety of settings including classroom (predominately reading/social studies), reading pull-out, and gifted pull-out.
After “retiring” from teaching, she became the third Executive Director of Kids Read Now. She leads the Kids Read Now Book Selection Council and uses her years of teaching experience to ensure children will have the best books to read over the summer. Barb also uses schematic theory to develop each book’s Discovery Sheet for maximum kid and parent engagement.
In her spare time, she loves creating stained glass art, quilting, gardening, knitting, reading, and playing the piano. She enjoys spending time and travelling with her family.
Over the course of his career, Randy has more than 30 years of experience in management, training, project management, strategic planning, and operations. This includes 5 years with AT&T, managing a large midwestern call center, and a start up computer cabling business.
Kids Read Now is a company whose mission and values align with Randy’s own, making this a perfect fit for him at this time in his career. He joined the organization on October 8, 2018 as the Director of Client Success. Later, in September of 2021, he took on the role of Chief Operating Officer. His goal is to continue scaling the company, enrolling more schools in the program and getting more books in the hands of children.
Randy received an MBA in 2011 from Urbana University. Over the last 10 years he has taught business courses at a local university. He and his wife Jackie have lived in Vandalia and Butler Township, Ohio for more than 35 years.
Christina has 20+ years of graphic design and marketing communications experience with multiple Inc. 500/5000 companies, building brands from the ground up.
After receiving her Bachelors and MBA degrees, she intentionally chose a career path focused on organizations that make the world a better place. She finds spreading the word about improving literacy for America’s children with Kids Read Now’s proven programs incredibly rewarding.
In her free time, Christina loves to paint, read, take road trips, play with her pups, Parker & Boo, and brag on her Marine son. Christina also teaches marketing and design part time at a local community college and volunteers extensively in her community.
El Cabrel Lee is a fund development professional with extensive executive level experience in strategic planning and resource development. A graduate of Clark Atlanta University, Mr. Lee has generated over $21,000,000 in funding for various United Way programs, private and public institutions. He also served as the Director of Community Relations and Resource Development for the Early Learning Coalition of Orange County, where he was responsible for the direction and execution of five signature educational projects and several fundraising campaigns including galas and year-end appeals. An Illinois native, El Cabrel enjoys traveling, spending time with family and exploring all types of cuisine. He is actively involved in several civic and community organizations and serves as a life member with Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.
Glen’s story starts in the woods as a camper. He continued to camp counselor, education major, Bachelor of Arts in Education, teacher, Camp Director, Master’s degree in Education Leadership, more Camp Director, more teaching, and finally literacy enthusiast as National Outreach Director with Kids Read Now. Glen has dedicated the last 40 years to serving kids, in the great outdoors and in classrooms. Seeing the disparity from one group of people to another during that time reinforced his drive to even the playing field and amplified his dedication to the mission of Kids Read Now. Glen’s story began sharing nature with kids, where all are on equal footing. He believes that literacy is the means for making that happen outside of the woods. In his spare time, he enjoys wildlife photography and playing music with his band.
Mike was born and raised in the southwest side of Chicago but has migrated south to have more quality time with children and grandchildren. This migration included an eastward journey to Ohio for 18 years and then down to Kentucky and finally Florida. His father worked at Rand McNally so as a child he had a personal library that consisted of three sets of encyclopedias, Lincoln Library of Essential Information, and about 500 books. He has been married for 38 years with three children and ten grandchildren. Mike is a Marine veteran and worked in the police field for seven years, five years as Military Police. He spent 30 years in the office automation field with 14 years in personal sales and 16 years in leadership roles. His favorite pastime is playing disc golf, which he describes as a nice walk ruined by colorful discs. Mike has been with Kids Read Now since 2019 and strives to bring reading help to the kids that need to most assistance.
As one of the Kids Read Now outreach specialists, Josh helps to introduce the program to schools that are in need of a reading program for their students over the summer, and helps keep the teachers, parents and students engaged. Josh has a degree in business management and an associate degree in music education. Josh is a self-proclaimed coin nerd. He inherited his grandfather’s collection and has more than tripled the collection during the pandemic.
Casey has been with Kids Read Now since we were a room within another company housing books in a loft warehouse, and she thinks it’s been exhilarating to be part of the incredible growth that KRN has achieved. Never before has she felt like a part of the solution, working closely with a group of people who are truly passionate about moving the K-5 literacy needle. As an Outreach Specialist, Casey acts almost as a mortar between departments, adding research, communicating needs and ideas, and assisting wherever there is a lose end to tie up! She thinks the best part about working at Kids Read Now is knowing that she is helping make a difference in the lives of families. A fun fact about Casey is she knows a very little bit about a very large amount of “things” and loves to pepper her friends with random knowledge. She has a great love for nature and ecosystems and strives to learn as much as possible about my environment.
One of Sheila’s best childhood memories is going to the library at the end of the school year and signing up for their summer reading program. She would read as many books as possible in order to receive a stamp or a sticker on her reading chart. Knowing that she was one of the top readers every summer at our local library was a great accomplishment! As a Client Success Account Manager, she loves working with our existing accounts in continuing to provide their students with access to books over the summer. Reading played a large part in her own childhood and having the opportunity to help other children read is a true joy for Sheila.
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Jackie specializes in building the framework and providing training to key staff for Zoho modules and applications. She’s always coming up with creative ways to improve KRN’s existing Zoho processes and applications. She works closely with the Fulfillment Center team to ensure the inventory system has accurate inventory data. She also works with the HR and Management staff to setup and maintain staffing requirements in Zoho People & Shifts. Jackie evaluates current data across different systems and generate reports to help managers and staff work more efficiently. Outside of work, Jackie is a very active person and likes to keep busy. She enjoys pickleball, disc golf, hiking, biking, and spending time with family.
Jim is an extrovert who loves spending time with his family and friends. When he’s not hanging out with his crew, you might find him watching sports or doing a woodworking project. Jim is a proud father to two sons. His oldest is on his way to college and his youngest will be a junior and playing soccer in high school. Jim has been with Kids Read Now since 2019. He has a professional background in Inventory/Personnel Management. Being someone that struggled with reading and comprehension growing up, he understands the importance of improving children’s reading comprehension every day. Working for an organization that is helping improve kids’ ability to sit and enjoy a book and make themselves better, that is something that makes him want go to work.
An Associate Principal with MLA, Alicia leads our Accounting Support Team as the Controller for Kids Read Now. Specializing in helping startups establish a financial grounding, Alicia’s experience positions her to provide management, payroll, budgeting, forecasting, and staff development for MLA clients. Alicia joined the MLA team in 2016, providing clients with transactional accounting and analysis, and working capital management. While she has done accounting work in several industries, including construction, music education, retail, and service, she has also managed customer relations, accounting, budgeting, and forecasting functions. As an accounting administrator with Armcorp Construction in Celina, Ohio, she was responsible for accounts receivable and payable, payroll, and communication with all the company’s vendors and customers. She also served as a staff accountant for Piqua Steel Company, assisting all account payable functions, monthly and quarterly taxes, and overseeing the cash flow analysis for management. Other work experience includes employee training, inventory control, payroll, preparing schedules and customer service.
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Paul is an associate professor of public policy, sociology, statistics and data science at the University of Texas in Austin, known for his work on summer learning, summer weight gain, research design, replicability of research, and missing data.
He works on evidence-based policy, education and inequality, and the obesity epidemic. He has won three best article awards for his work on education and obesity, as well as the 2019 Leo Goodman Award for contributions to statistical methods within 15 years of receiving a PhD.
Before his academic career, he worked as a data scientist, using predictive analytics to help banks prevent fraud. He holds degrees in statistics and sociology from Ohio State University, as well as degrees in music from Yale and Stanford. He still plays jazz piano.
NY Native with decades of K-12 school administration experience and as retired superintendent for Troy City Schools, Glenn understands the complex relationships between staff, teachers, parents, students, and the community. He has his doctorate from The Ohio State University and has been an adjunct professor at OSU.
He and his wife Becky live in Cincinnati and Florida, but still bleeds Scarlet and Grey.
After graduating from Miami University in 2006, Jonathan spent several years in Chicago working in the commodities markets before moving back to Cincinnati, OH. During his 10 years at Ft. Washington Investment Advisors, Inc., Jonathan led large teams and projects associated with the rapid growth, acquisitions, regulatory changes, and complex transactional activity.
When he left, Ft. Washington was managing over $47 billion across equity, private equity and fixed income strategies and leveraging many of the tools, teams and strategies Jonathan developed.
In an effort to apply these principles across different industries, Jonathan relocated to Dayton, OH and joined Brixey & Meyer in 2016, where he now leads a team of high-performing business consultants. They focus on operational excellence, technology strategy and strategic planning for companies ranging from Fortune 500 to pre-revenue startups.
Since 1976, Bob has been leading Microtell Management Services Inc. Formerly Ver-A-Fast Corporation, this privately held management, marketing, and consulting firm focuses on helping startup businesses launch new products and services. His team has more than 40 years of successful experience within the publishing, telecommunications, and consumer products industries, serving hundreds of clients.
Bob invented and patented the original TeleZapper back in 2000. It was created as a physical device that millions of consumers used to reduce the number of Telemarketing phone calls specifically to their analog home phones.
He is delighted to share his expertise with the Board members of KRN.
As SVP for Digital Marketplace Development, Amanda provides strategic business development, including e-book channel development, scaled marketing programs, ecommerce, partnerships, marketing platforms, analytics, tools, and training.
A graduate of Harvard University and the Stern School of Business, Amanda has also held positions of responsibility for Crown Publishing Group, Bertelsmann, Solomon Smith Barney, and Zefer/ Waite & Company.
A lifelong learner, Barbara has earned five degrees, and has a decades long background in elementary education with a focus on reading. A proud mother of two, Barbara’s other passions include classical piano, theater productions, a pilot’s license, creating stained glass treasures, and giving tours at North America’s oldest estate winery near her home on Pelee Island.
Cameisha is the CIO of TE Connectivity, a $14BB high tech company with strong corporate focus on diversity, people development, and community support—donating over $1.5MM a year toward technology efforts for women and underserved populations.
I’m most interested in making contributions in strategy, planning, and roadmap development, increasing public awareness of the organization.
When the foundation for reading skills is not valued, a child’s life is set up for a lifetime of failures. I want to bring forth innovative ideas from the corporate world to increase awareness and increase opportunities for funding for Kids Read Now.
Kids Read Now is committed to providing an environment of mutual respect which embraces our individual uniqueness, talents, and differences. Our goal is to provide a diverse, inclusive organization representative of the students and families we serve.
Kids Read Now provides equal opportunities to all employees, volunteers, board members, and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, national origin, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, military or veteran status, genetic information, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law. In addition to federal law requirements, Kids Read Now complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which our organization operates, serves, or has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.
Kids Read Now expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment or retaliation.
