Fifteen years ago, she was building NASA space shuttles with Rockwell International in Lancaster, Calif. She and her family moved to the Treasure Valley in 1989 with the team that planted Vineyard Boise.

The Vineyard in Lancaster had operated a cooperative school to support parents who home-schooled their children. As the young Boise church grew, a few families caught that same vision. They researched curriculum options and legal issues and soon formed their own co-op, Vineyard Christian Family School, with about 30 students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

The school encountered some leadership changes during its second year, 1994, and Vineyard Boise pastor Tri Robinson asked Patti to become principal. She's now in her sixth year.

The school includes preschool through sixth grade and currently has 59 students. Their families pay tuition to support the part-time staff of six teachers (plus Patti) and cover operating expenses.

"Our whole vision is to help families who want to home-school their kids," she said. "We want to come alongside them and support their home-schooling efforts."

The school provides a Bible-based curriculum, and teachers develop lesson schedules and learning expectations. But "we're just the secondary teachers," Patti said. "Mom and dad at home are the primary teachers." 

Students spend Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays learning at home. On Tuesdays and Thursdays they attend school in Vineyard Boise's Ezra Family Center.

"We provide a classroom environment where students can do more of the hands-on kinds of the things - science projects, craft projects, spelling bees," Patti said.

Students take tests and quizzes together, and they often go on field trips and have guest speakers.

The school is unable to offer the broad range of elective classes found in larger schools. But parents often help their kids get involved in extra activities like art, foreign language study and athletics by taking advantage of community organizations.

Parents are encouraged to be involved in the classroom if they want, Patti said.

"They can volunteer to be lunch mom or craft mom or help in some other way," she said. "Dads often come hang out with the kids at lunch."

Communication between parents and teachers is a vital part of the school's success.

"We're very, very, very open," Patti said. "We're here to support home-school families, and we greatly value their input."

Patti said the school provides a good balance between the traditional school model, in which students leave home and spend much of their day in public or private institutions, and the full home-school approach, in which students do all of their learning at home.

"You lose a little bit of the flexibility of 100% home-schooling, but what you gain in the classroom experience more than compensates for that," Patti said. "You gain accountability and direction."

She explained that most home-school programs establish yearly learning goals, but the big question parents face is: "How do I break down a year's worth of curriculum week by week? And we do all that for them," Patti said.

Students who finish sixth grade in the Vineyard school are prepared to continue their education in whatever setting they and their parents choose - public school, private school or at home.

Critics of home-schooling often allege that students don't receive the instruction or social interaction they need. Although no serious effort has been made to track students who graduate from the Vineyard school, most kids who go on to public or private school "enter real strong at grade level or above," Patti said. And socially speaking, the program's students relate well to their peers as well as adults, she said.

"Home-schooling is not for everybody, and it's not for everybody all the way through," she said. "But if you want to home-school, if you feel like it's what the Lord is calling you to do, then check it out. You're not locked into anything if it doesn't work for you."

Patti and her husband Bill have four children. Garrett, an eighth-grader, and Chelsea, a seventh-grader, both attended the Vineyard school. Garrett now attends Cole Valley Christian School, and Chelsea is continuing with home-school. Jordan is in fourth grade at the co-op school.

"And we just adopted a baby (Nathan, 9 months) last July, so I'll probably be doing this until I die," she said.

Patti said she encourages interested parents to talk to people like her and Bill who home-school their children and "ask lots of questions."

Vineyard Christian Family School is providing an opportunity to do just that at an information meeting set for 7 p.m. April 18 in the Ezra Center. For details, contact Patti on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the church, 377-1477.