Capstone Classical Academy

Capstone Classical Academy knows the problems of the licensing regime firsthand. The school was founded to offer North Dakota families a different kind of education: a classical, Christian education that is concerned with formation and learning how to think, rather than just information and learning what to think. From the beginning, school leaders knew the state’s teacher licensing laws would make its mission difficult. 

In May 2025, Capstone received a letter from the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction noting that “several current Capstone teachers” are “either unlicensed or teaching outside of their licensed areas.” “While we appreciate the commitment of these individuals to meeting student needs,” the letter continued, “licensure is a legal requirement for school approval.” The letter then ordered Capstone to “[p]rovide executed teaching contracts for each classroom teacher who will be employed for the 2025-2026 school year, confirming they are appropriately licensed or approved by ESPB [North Dakota’s Educational Standards and Practices Board].” The letter warned that “failure to meet these conditions may result in non-renewal of Capstone’s nonpublic school approval” and threatened to “notify families and media outlets that Capstone is not an approved nonpublic school, and that student attendance at the school may not fulfill the state’s compulsory education requirements.”

Capstone spent the next year expending tremendous time, energy, and resources attempting to come into compliance with the state’s licensing laws and placing these already highly qualified teachers on one of the state-approved, but entirely unnecessary, pathways to licensure. The school spent well over 10 thousand dollars in, among other things, licensing and application fees, costs associated with college coursework and testing, and fees for “re-education” credits. 

Yet, despite this, some Capstone teachers remain unable to dedicate the time necessary to start on a pathway to licensure. For instance, one of its teachers is a Ph.D. candidate in Christian-Muslim relations at the University of Edinburgh who has completed his Ph.D. coursework and is in the middle of writing his dissertation. Prior to commencing his Ph.D. studies, he taught and served as a department head at a college preparatory school in Michigan. Yet, in the eyes of North Dakota, he is not qualified to teach. The demands of his teaching and dissertation, meanwhile, are such that he is not currently able to work toward licensure. For now, he and the school have found an absurd workaround: he’s technically deemed an interim substitute teacher, which is the only reason he has been able to remain at Capstone. 

Were that not enough, one of Capstone’s administrators recently had to tell a retired university professor with decades of teaching experience that he was unqualified (in the state’s eyes) to teach students at any grade level.