Education · Fargo, ND Metro · August 25, 2026
ND Denies All Claims in Christian School's Teacher-Licensing Lawsuit
What Alinsky tactic is being used
3 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 9
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
The decisive pressure in this story came not from an enforcement action but from a letter. In May 2025 the Department of Public Instruction told Capstone that several teachers were unlicensed or teaching outside their licensed areas, warned that this "may result in non-renewal" of the school's nonpublic approval, and said it would notify families and media outlets that attendance might not satisfy compulsory education requirements. No approval was ever pulled, yet the school reports spending more than $10,000 on licensing fees, applications and re-education credits, plus months of administrative work, to get ahead of a threat that was never carried out.
Counter-Rule 9 · Courageous Realism
Name the worst case out loud and cost it honestly. Fear of the unnamed is doing most of the work.
Cost the worst case out loud instead of imagining it. Ask your own school's head, in writing, three things: what state approval actually is, what the written process and appeal timeline are if it were withdrawn, and what compliance has cost in dollars and staff hours in the last two years. Write the figures down and keep the state's letters in a file; a threat you have priced in cannot stampede the board into a decision at the next meeting.
Rule 3
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
The state's August 14 answer does not mainly argue that licensing private-school teachers is good policy. It argues that the plaintiffs lack standing, that they waited too long to sue, and that the Eleventh Amendment bars the case, and asks for dismissal with prejudice. That moves the fight from a subject a headmaster, a teacher and a parent understand — who may teach in their classrooms — onto jurisdictional terrain where almost no layman can follow, and where the merits may never be reached.
Counter-Rule 3 · Preparation and Width
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are dragged onto it. "I don't know, I'll find out and come back" beats an improvised answer.
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are standing in it. Pull the actual answer from the court docket (free listing on Justia, full filings through PACER) and read the numbered defenses rather than press summaries of them. Learn the plain meaning of standing, timeliness and state sovereign immunity well enough to say what each would decide. When someone asks you a procedural question you cannot answer, say "I don't know — I'll find the filing and come back," and then do it.
Rule 13
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
One school was named. The compliance letter singled out Capstone by name and threatened to tell families and media outlets that it was not an approved nonpublic school — a public marking of one institution, not a statewide rule change. InForum reported that in June an Institute for Justice attorney could not say whether any other private school in Fargo or the state would join, and no others had been confirmed by the time the state answered; an isolated defendant is a cheaper one to beat.
Counter-Rule 13 · Radical Solidarity
Stand publicly with whoever has been singled out. Isolation is the whole mechanism; refusing it disarms the tactic.
Refuse the isolation in a way that is on the record. Ask the leadership of your own school or association whether they have considered joining, filing a supporting brief, or issuing a public statement, and ask for a dated answer. If your school benefits from the same statute being tested, say so publicly by name — a letter to the editor or a board resolution — rather than waiting to see how one school's case comes out.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
Know where you stand
The free 4-minute assessment identifies your mountain and your institution’s capture phase — so alerts like this one arrive matched to where you actually stand.
Facing this yourself? Ask. Describe what is happening and get what the book, Scripture, and the law of your state say, with the exact words to use. Your first one is free.