Meet Teshanda Middleton, CEO of Ready for School, Ready for Life
Teshanda Middleton knows the power of a carefully planned, well-orchestrated social system to improve the lives of families and communities. She honed her systems-building experience as CEO of Communities in Schools of Memphis, Tennessee; as the founder of a Memphis charter school; and as a private-sector leader with the education firm Scholastic. Now, in her new role as CEO at Ready for School, Ready for Life, she is applying her experience to Guilford County’s blossoming system of support for its youngest children and their families.
Creating Clarity for the Community
Middleton is clear about what it takes to build a strong system that supports children and families: a clear vision; data-driven decision making; strong, trusting relationships; and – most importantly – keeping community at the core.
“My passion is to make sure that those on the other end of our mission feel the promise of the mission in positive, impactful ways,” she said. “I learned the hard way that people don’t like it when others come into their community and tell them what they need. Communities can articulate that for themselves. Our job is to listen, create a universal design with broad goals for everyone and incorporate strategies for those historically left out.”
Ready Ready plays a key role in Get Ready Guilford, Guilford County’s broad, multi-partner vision to develop a coordinated system of care for young children and their families. Ready Ready is the “backbone” organization for that effort, stewarding the infrastructure, alignment and governance that enables the collective work of Get Ready Guilford’s multiple partners. It received significant local, regional and national funding in 2018 to support that backbone work and has since helped partners pilot seven evidence-based or evidence-informed programs across Guilford County, developed a shared integrated data system, and connected more than 40,000 children and families to supportive programs and services.
Middleton is quick to clarify the distinction between Get Ready Guilford and Ready Ready.
“Get Ready Guilford belongs to the people of Guilford County,” she said. “Our role at Ready Ready is to bring members of the system together for consistent clarity and alignment, making sure we share a common definition of success and always giving community members voice, agency and authority. We want to make sure people know where we are headed and our pathway there.”
Building a Data-Driven Structure
Middleton is currently focusing on refining and enhancing Ready Ready’s governance, data structure and partner alignment to better sustain the growing system over time. “It’s important that we design systems in a way that allows families to truly engage, especially those with the least amount of access and voice,” she said.
As a backbone, Ready Ready also helps create pathways for system-wide data collection. “We can use data as a compass – not just for reporting but to hold ourselves accountable and create feedback loops that keep family and community voices front and center,” Middleton said.
She is particularly excited about new data from Guilford County Schools that shows kindergarten readiness, by neighborhood. “We will be able to develop neighborhood engagement strategies that connect back to our systems-building work. This will mean creating family leadership councils and engaging grassroots organizations, anchor institutions and community schools to deliver services. Getting this right will determine how we partner with other organizations,” Middleton said.
Fostering Collaboration and Trust
Collaboration requires trusting relationships. Middleton knows this from her time at the helm of Communities in Schools of Memphis, where she was a partner to multiple national and local backbone organizations. “One of the primary lessons from my time in Memphis was the importance of building trust among partners, community and funders. You build confidence that way. At the end of the day, no organization can build systems on its own. It requires accountability and transparency to build a culture of learning and trust. We all must come to the work with humility; there is no room for ego,” she said.
Meeting Challenges
Middleton is unapologetic about insisting on a high bar of excellence on behalf of Guilford County families. “We’ve tried hard and have been working to build a system one piece at a time, but we’ve lacked the connectivity to bring the pieces together. My challenge now is to bridge what we’ve done so far with what we’ve missed and what we aspire to.”
She also emphasized the importance of diversifying funding. “In Memphis, I learned about the importance of having multiple funders who are true partners who are not just looking to write a check, but to build trust and impact,” she shared.
“Our work has to outlast any individual leader or funder, and I’m excited about the opportunity to create more public/private partnerships to sustain this effort for the long term,” Middleton added, noting that her years of experience in the for-profit education space can help forge some of those relationships.
Connecting with the Community
Although she’s new to Guilford County, Middleton says that her team and the community have welcomed her warmly. “People connect with the mission; they care about their families, and that’s what we care about, too,” she said.
For Middleton, building relationships that will ultimately build a strong early childhood system means being out in the community. She makes sure to schedule “boots on the ground time” every week; everything from Little League games to grocery store runs in different neighborhoods are opportunities to connect.
“I show up everywhere,” she said. “Before I took this job, I spent personal time traveling here and talking to people in the community. I already felt connected before I arrived, and the more people I meet, the more that sense of connection and common purpose grows. I’m constantly energized by this and our shared commitment to creating a seamless, efficient system that is driven by community voice and that every family can tap into effortlessly.”