In the mid-1980’s Debbie Bragonier, a certificated teacher and homeschooling mother, began providing the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) to children of the families involved in the REACHEast Christian support group in Bellevue, Washington. At that time, there was virtually no one individual, no public or private school, no agency of any kind offering testing exclusively to homeschoolers. Debbie basically started Homeschool Test Service as a ministry to help families comply with our Washington State Home-based Education Law.

In 1990 when my oldest child was 8 years old, I, Val Howard, began helping Debbie with testing by being a proctor for one of the grade level testing classes. By that time, she had a fairly good size testing group and soon had to branch out and offer testing at additional locations. Soon other homeschooling mothers, who were also certificated teachers, began getting testing materials from Debbie so they could provide testing to homeschooling families in their areas. And Homeschool Test Service has been expanding ever since.

In 1999 Debbie and her family made the decision to move back to their home state of California, and I became her replacement. My first testing season was the spring of 2000 and, at that time, HTS offered testing at approximately 10 locations in Washington State. This spring, 2004, there will be about 25 testing sites under the direction of Homeschool Test Service.

The main goal of all the Test Coordinators affiliated with Homeschool Test Service is to provide the best possible testing experiences for homeschoolers in our state as families attempt to be in compliance with the state’s homeschooling requirements. We continue to use the full battery edition of the Stanford Achievement Test, we have trained, knowledgeable proctors, we provide professional scoring results, and we are committed to homeschooling in all aspects. We all look forward to working with you and your children at all the HTS testing sites this spring.