The Highest Standard is an education consultant agency specializing in providing comprehensive professional development and training on the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), vertical alignment, SPED, and alternative teacher and new teacher training.
Our aim is to empower educators by providing new and alternative teachers with the support and guidance needed to succeed in the classroom. The first year can be overwhelming and our courses will equip new and alternative certification educators with the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively teach the TEKS and support student learning outcomes while continuously deepening the students learning.
The idea to create The Highest Standard originated with its CEO, Valerie Dominy. Valerie is an alternative certification teacher who felt thrown to the educational wolves in her first year of teaching. She lived the overwhelm and frustration of treading water and trying to understand the how, when, and why’s of all the tasks and duties a public education teacher completes on a daily and yearly basis. With a growing number of educators coming into the field as “non-traditional” educators, she understood the need to effectively bridge the gap between professional knowledge and the intricate in’s and out’s of the public educator role.
Valerie is using years of research she conducted to help herself understand the intent and design of the education system in Texas and has created professional development courses to share her knowledge and alleviate stress for new and alternative teachers in the state. Burn out is a real threat to our system, and we need to implement a solid foundation and understanding of our system in our new educators to set them up for success and longevity.
Valerie is certified ELA 7-12 and Business and Finance 6-12. She is in her sixth year of teaching and has thorough experience with all grade levels in the Secondary world. She spent time in traditional and non-traditional classrooms and learned a lot through trial and error. Her passion for inspiring educators to maintain vision of their why caused her to realize we first have to understand how to complete the job.
The Highest Standard is the answer to the age old questions of “how do I cover the material in my course to ensure learning” and “how do I do it the way the Texas Education Agency says I need to in order to be in legal compliance?”…ok maybe the second one is not age old, but it sure is the focus of Administrators and leaders in your district and the one way to ensure truly equitable access to education across the state of Texas.
Teachers do not have to give up their pedagogy or autonomy to maintain compliance within the standards. They must first understand the rules in order to “break” them. Take a deep dive in any of our created courses and find out how you can be YOU while rooting your teaching in our state standards.
