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Parents and applicants urge Fremont to clarify hiring rule they say bars homeschool diplomas
Summary
Public commenters told the City Council that a recently posted city hiring requirement — that high school diplomas be from 'accredited' schools — effectively prevents graduates of Nebraska 'rule 13' homeschool programs from city jobs and called for a formal review and transparent policy.
Public commenters urged the Fremont City Council to review a newly applied hiring requirement they say is blocking qualified homeschool graduates from city employment.
At the start of the meeting, Scott Preston told the council that homeschool students as a group "scored on average between 15 and 25% higher" on standardized tests and described them as "high achieving, great social development, civic minded, tolerant, and rapidly increasing in numbers." Preston said the city recently changed job postings that had required a high school diploma to specify graduation "from an accredited high school," which he said makes it harder for homeschoolers to qualify for city jobs.
Seth Coats followed with a personal account: his son, educated under Nebraska's "rule 13" homeschool provisions, applied for a firefighter position, submitted his diploma and accredited college transcripts, and then was told his application was withdrawn "because his high school diploma was not accredited," Coats said. He said the accreditation requirement was not disclosed in the posted job announcement or in communications from the city and that repeated requests for clarification from city staff had gone unanswered.
"In public employment, qualification standards must be clearly defined in advance, publicly accessible, and consistently applied," Coats said, urging council members to sponsor a formal review and place the issue on a future agenda so the city's employment rules can be examined for consistency and transparency.
Why it matters: hundreds or thousands of Nebraskan students are educated under rule 13 exemptions; if the city's hiring rule requires accredited diplomas, those graduates could be excluded from municipal employment even when they hold later accredited degrees or other qualifying credentials.
What the city said on record: no staff response was recorded during the public comment period (the council declared that staff and council would not respond during public comment, per Fremont Municipal Code Section 2-103). The commenters asked council to investigate and to require that any hiring criteria be published and uniformly applied.
Next steps: petitioners asked the council to schedule an agenda item for a formal review of Fremont's hiring standards so the city can clarify whether non-accredited but state-recognized homeschool diplomas meet minimum qualifications for public employment.
