A 22-year-old Nebraska volunteer firefighter wants to turn the work he already does into a career. One line on his diploma stopped him before he got the chance.
Andrew Coates volunteers with the Cedar Bluffs Fire Department and holds a state EMT license. He applied for a paid firefighter position with the City of Fremont, but WOWT reported that the city rejected his application because his high school diploma came from homeschooling.
The disagreement is not simply over whether Fremont can require an accredited education. It is also over what the city told applicants when Coates applied.
At the time, the job posting required graduation from high school. After Coates was rejected, the city changed the requirement to specify graduation from an accredited high school.
The Fine Print
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Fremont Human Resources Director Jennifer McDuffee told WOWT that accreditation was already understood to be part of the original requirement.
“I would say it’s a standard understanding that when someone requests a high school diploma or GED, they’re asking for an accredited diploma,” McDuffee said.
That distinction matters in Nebraska because homeschooling operates under a different legal structure from an accredited public or private school.
The Nebraska Department of Education calls homeschools “exempt schools.” Families using them elect not to meet the state’s approval or accreditation requirements, and the schools are considered non-approved and non-accredited private schools.
That does not mean Nebraska ignores completion of a homeschool education.
Under Nebraska Revised Statute 79-201, a child who completes the program of instruction offered by an exempt school is specifically recognized separately from a student who earns a high school diploma under the state’s standard graduation requirements.
The statute concerns compulsory school attendance, not firefighter hiring requirements. It does, however, show the distinction Nebraska law makes between completing an exempt-school education and graduating through the accredited-school system.
A Moving Line
Coates’ application was rejected in April.
According to WOWT, the application materials at the time required only “graduation from high school.” Fremont later added the word “accredited” to the firefighter job description.
That sequence became one of the central issues when Coates challenged the decision.
Coates told the station that the fight had grown beyond his own application.
“We’re not mad about one applicant, my application,” he said. “I think now it’s turned into we want to make sure that every homeschooler has an equal opportunity.”
His current qualifications also became part of the dispute. Coates already volunteers as a firefighter, and he holds a Nebraska EMT license.
Cedar Bluffs Fire Chief Chris Lichtenberg backed him at a Fremont Civil Service Commission hearing, arguing that the city was missing out on a qualified candidate and characterizing the treatment as discrimination based on Coates’ homeschooling.
Commissioner Doug Backens rejected that characterization.
“I don’t think there was any discrimination against him,” Backens said during the hearing, adding that he did not care to hear the word used that way.
The Original Words
The commission did identify a different problem.
Commission Chairman Steve Tellatin pointed to “the posting of the original requirements for the job and the ambiguity” surrounding what qualified as a diploma.
About 30 homeschool supporters attended the appeal, according to WOWT.
The city’s official agenda archive lists the Civil Service Commission meeting held on Sept. 18.
But the commission ultimately took no action on Coates’ application after determining that it could not address city policy.
That left the rejection in place.
Another Route
Coates’ father, Seth Coates, said the family viewed the commission’s decision as a refusal to intervene on his son’s behalf.
An attorney represented Andrew Coates during a hearing that lasted about five hours, according to the WOWT report.
With the commission taking no action, his father said the family had 30 days to take the dispute to court.
Andrew Coates, meanwhile, said he still hopes another paid fire department will consider the experience he already has as a volunteer.
“To do this job for a living,” he said, “that would be the dream.”