Today we’d like to introduce you to Niki Cooper.
Hi Niki, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Honestly, my story starts with a deep desire to serve. Even before I finished my bachelor’s degree, I was requested as an early-release intern, spending my final months employed in a local classroom with high-needs students. That experience confirmed everything. I knew this was exactly what I was meant to do.
Graduate school deepened that calling. I focused on students from poverty, neurodiverse learners, and academically and intellectually gifted students because I quickly learned that personalized learning isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity.
My first official role was as a Math Intervention teacher in Wake County, where I was honored to receive the WCPSS Diane Kent-Parker First Year Teacher Award. From there, I had an incredible opportunity to spend a year in Kobe, Japan, as a part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program, developing curriculum and designing workshops to help Japanese teachers bring English education to their students. That global experience gave me a perspective on learning that I still carry with me today.
When I returned, I went back to Wake County, where I taught elementary school, then transitioned to middle grades, and eventually moved into an Instructional Resource Teacher role on the administration team, all while serving as the AIG teacher for the school. I received Teacher of the Year honors along the way, but what mattered most to me was always the families and the students who needed someone in their corner.
My last chapter before founding Mighty Oaks was as Student Services Director at a Montessori school, where I built and marketed a program from the ground up to address the emotional, social, behavioral, and academic needs of the whole child.
All of those experiences, from poverty to giftedness, from Japan to the IRT office, kept pointing me toward the same truth: families need a real partner who can see the whole picture. That’s why Thomas and I founded Mighty Oaks Consulting. Today, I get to do the work I was always meant to do, walking alongside families and helping them move forward with clarity and confidence.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Smooth? No. But I think the detours were necessary.
At one point, I stepped away from education and moved into the corporate world. I worked as an Implementation Consultant and eventually as a Senior Training and Development Specialist for a global e-commerce tech company. And honestly, I was good at it. I designed certification programs, led global enablement teams, and improved case resolution rates by fifteen percentage points in two weeks. But something was always pulling at me.
I kept thinking about families. About kids who needed someone in their corner. Corporate work sharpened my skills in ways I didn’t expect, but it also made crystal clear what I was actually built for. Empowering families. Impacting children. That clarity is what led Thomas and me to launch Mighty Oaks.
Even then, it wasn’t an instant embrace. Breaking into the Raleigh area as a new consulting firm meant proving myself, building trust from scratch, and being patient when the phone wasn’t ringing as I’d hoped. That’s hard. Especially when you know what you’re capable of.
What turned the corner for me was leaning into exactly who we are. We offer a warm, genuinely fun academic testing and consulting experience that families don’t expect when they walk in the door. And we give parents honest, transparent feedback and real guidance, not a report they can’t understand. Once families experienced that, the word spread. That’s where we are today, and I’m so thankful!
Every struggle shaped the approach. I wouldn’t change the journey.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
At Mighty Oaks Consulting, our tagline is “Academic solutions tailored to YOUnique learners,” and we mean that literally. We are a family-led educational consulting firm with over 30 years of combined experience, and everything we do is built around one belief: every child deserves a strategy designed specifically for them.
We serve families across all educational environments, whether your child is in public, private, hybrid, virtual, or homeschool settings. That last group is especially close to our hearts. Homeschool families, in particular, often carry a lot of weight on their own, and one of our greatest joys is walking alongside them and reminding them they are not alone.
Our two core services are academic consulting and Woodcock-Johnson achievement testing, and honestly, both come back to the same thing: giving parents clarity and confidence.
On the testing side, we administer the Woodcock-Johnson V Tests of Achievement, which is one of the most trusted academic assessments available. What makes our experience different is the environment we create. Families tell us all the time that they were nervous walking in, and that their child left asking when they could come back. One mom shared that her daughter said she wanted to return just to hang out. That means everything to me. We work hard to make testing feel safe, encouraging, and even fun, because a child who is relaxed performs authentically. And that authentic data is what actually helps us help them.
We provide scores immediately following testing, and we walk parents through what those numbers actually mean in plain language. No jargon. No report handed over without context. Real guidance. Real strategies. Real resources. We are also an ESA+ approved provider, which makes us accessible to even more families who need this service.
On the consulting side, we help families design individualized academic strategies, support neurodiverse and gifted learners, navigate curriculum decisions, and transition into or through homeschooling with confidence.
What I want readers to know most is this: if you have ever felt overwhelmed by your child’s learning profile, or felt like the system just was not built for your kid, we are here for you. You are the expert on your child. We are just here to equip you! We plant the seeds, YOU grow the trees!
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
Yes, and I want to speak directly to the parent who is reading this and quietly wondering if they are doing enough. The one who has spent hours researching, advocating, second-guessing, and losing sleep over their child’s education. I see you. And I want you to know that the fact that you care this much already tells me something important about you: you are exactly the kind of parent your child needs.
You do not have to have it all figured out. You just have to be willing to take the next step. And sometimes that next step is simply asking for help. Or clarity. (Or both!)
That is what we are here for. Whether you are trying to understand your child’s learning profile, navigating a transition into homeschooling, or just need someone to look at the full picture with you and help you make sense of it, we would love to be that resource for your family.
You can find us at mightyoaksconsulting.com, and we are also on Instagram and Facebook. Reach out, ask questions, and come as you are. There is no situation too complicated or too simple. Every family deserves clarity, and every child deserves a strategy built just for them.
We plant the seeds. You grow the trees.
Pricing:
- $115 – Achievement Testing – includes 10 Woodcock-Johnson V tests (released Feb. 2025), <2 hours of testing, scores provided immediately following testing, including Broad Achievement score
- $95 – Basic Homeschool Testing – includes 6 Woodcock-Johnson V tests, no fluency (timed) tests, ~1.5 hours of testing, satisfies NC § 115C-564 requirements (annual homeschool testing mandate)
- $45/single or $60/multiple kids – Personalized Half-Hour Consult – Upgrade to move beyond compliance or curiosity! This dedicated session provides an in-depth review of your child’s performance, complete with observations and patterns from the test administration, to develop personalized instructional and/or curriculum recommendations and deepen your understanding of the scores, giving you the confidence and clarity needed to guide your child’s success.
- $75/hour – Consulting – Academic Strategy & Support – Learn how to increase your child’s confidence, Discover ways to keep your child engaged while meeting their academic needs, Analyze curricula & instruction options, Become inspired by organization, routine, & transition suggestions, Support your neurodiverse child, Prepare to successfully transition to homeschooling, Get personalized homeschool support
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mightyoaksconsulting.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mightyoaksconsulting
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mightyoaksconsultingllc
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikibcooper/
