A small resource center serving homeschooled learners in Beaverton, Oregon, Village Home Education Resource Center, has achieved top honors in state competitions and earned the right to represent Oregon in THREE national and global competitions. This year, THREE teams from Village Home will compete in the national and international contests: Lego Robotics, Destination Imagination, and Toy Challenge by the Sally Ride Foundation. This is quite a remarkable

by Jenn Director Knudsen, Special to The Oregonian
Thursday May 14, 2009, 9:11 AM

BEAVERTON -- Village Home Education Resource Center is a home-away-from-home for nearly 300 families who have selected an educational world without grades or tests. And interest in its approach is growing.

The nonprofit center provides more than 100 classes Tuesdays through Thursdays, plus opportunities for socializing, for home-schooled students. Since opening its Beaverton center in 2003, it has recently added a Northeast Portland site. Preschool through high school students, from across the metro area, attend both locations.

Amid school districts' projected budget cuts, parents of children in public school are inquiring in greater numbers about Village Home, said Lori Walker, the center's founder and executive director.

"It's causing them to evaluate the whole approach" to their kids' education, Walker said. "They're looking at options."

by Christina Lent
The Village Home Education Resource Center in Beaverton is turning out academic champions left and right. Three teams of students and one ace speller from the learning community for families who home educate their children will represent Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in national and international competitions in the coming weeks. Village Home’s Lego robotics “Team Um” traveled Tuesday to Atlanta as one of only 15 teams invited to the FIRST Lego League World Festival.

By Sara Sugarman At the FIRST Robotics Competition, three all-female teams are helping to rewire a male-dominated profession. Team: The Fire-Breathing Rubber Duckies Hometown: Portland, OR Tesca Fitzgerald, age 12: "I wasn't very interested in technology before, but FIRST has inspired me to become a computer software engineer. I already know four different computer programs. Last year I found a way to enable the robot to read and write text files." Taytlyn Fitzgerald, age 14: "When I was only one of two girls on a team, it was hard. I spent that entire year sitting on a radiator watching the boys program the robot. Our coach said, 'Boys are the surgeons and girls are the nurses: You hand the boys the pieces to build the robot.' I knew better." (NOTE: Taytlyn's experience she is referring to was NOT on a team at Village Home.) VIEW ONLINE STORY

Raleigh Hills home-schooler Connor Aberle used his full “bee” mode Wednesday to make it to the semifinals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

Portland Mercury
by Sarah Mirk
February 04, 2010
It's Sunday morning. I'm in Hillsboro. I'm surrounded by Legos. These are not the Legos you grew up with. At least, they're not the Legos I grew up with. These Legos have brains. And so do the kids who are building them into robots, with grand plans to save the world......

Home-schooler Connor Aberle takes the stage Saturday at regional contest
By Jennifer Anderson
The Portland Tribune, Mar 12, 2010
Connor Aberle received his prize in the 2009 Regional Spelling Bee from Rebecca Brown of Comcast. Aberle won by correctly spelling “Olivaceous” and “Erythromycin.” Tribune file photo Local spelling bee champ Connor Aberle will fight to defend his title on Saturday at the eighth annual Portland Tribune/Comcast Regional Spelling Bee. After winning the regional contest last year, Connor – who represents the Village Home Education Center – advanced to the Scripps National Spelling Bee last May. He made it to the semifinals and has been training to do no less than win at the national level this year, which is his last year of eligibility since he’s 14, according to his mother, Shelley. “He’s been studying spelling about three hours a day ever since he finished nationals last year,” Shelley Aberle says. “He’s learned an incredible amount, and is so much better prepared now than he was last year at the same time.” Some of his tricks beyond the standard word lists: he’s been studying language families and tricky word patterns, and has also competed in some of the weekly kids’ and adult spelling bees at Mississippi Pizza, to practice his crowd presence.

HIllsboro Argus
On April 10th, Village Home student, Denna Good-Mojab held a concert benefiting Mercy Corps' work in Haiti. She raised over $1800 dollars through ticket sales and donations. The concert program included operatic, classical, and other works in English, Italian, German, and Farsi. See the Hillsboro Argus article below for more details.

Village Home learner, Tesca Fitzgerald, was one of four students worldwide invited to give a 10-minute presentation about finding your passion through participation in science fairs at Google in New York City on January 11, 2011. She was one of four speakers to launch the worldwide Google Science Fair.
The other speakers were: 1. Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, also renowned as the ‘Father of the Internet’
2. Mariette DiChristina, Scientific American's editor in chief
3. Spencer Wells, award-winning geneticist from National Geographic
4. William Kamkwamba, author The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

(From Scientifc American) "Artificial-intelligence (AI) buff Tesca Fitzgerald of Oregon, who is already enrolled in college even though she does not graduate from high school until June, showed off her entry in the science fair. Fitzgerald's project investigated how autonomous robots could help ease nurses' workload in hospitals. Citing statistics about a shortage of nurses, and about the disproportionate amount of time nurses spend transporting patient items, Fitzgerald presented a modification to a robotic pathfinding algorithm to help patient-serving robots better reach their destinations. It was competing in science fairs, she said, that brought out her passion for artificial intelligence."

Watch Tesca's presentation at http://www.youtube.com/googlesciencefair#p/u/0/4suJJRh9V-k (Tesca starts at about minute 49:30.)
More more information about Google's new project, see google.com/sciencefair