BISMARCK — North Dakota’s Department of Public Instruction is continuing its search to fill an opening on the state’s Board of Public Education after the earlier application period failed to attract a qualified candidate.

The seven-member board meets 10 times a year to decide school district requests to transfer property, reorganize or dissolve. It oversees the state’s K-12 Education Coordination Council,

seven regional education associations

and the Department of Career and Technical Education.

According to a release from the Department of Public Instruction, the person chosen will succeed former board member Burdell Johnson, who resigned in August and will serve the time left on Johnson’s term, which ends June 30, 2026.

Applicants serve six-year terms and must be an eligible North Dakota voter, a member of a North Dakota school board and a resident of one of these eight counties: Burleigh, Stutsman, Eddy, Foster, Kidder, McLean, Sheridan and Wells.

Eligible applications are reviewed by North Dakota United, the North Dakota Council of Education Leaders and the North Dakota School Boards Association. The finalists will be considered by the governor for appointment.

Those interested can apply on the

governor’s website.

The application deadline is 5 p.m., Friday, Oct. 11.

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A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a lower court erred by dismissing a Dakota Access Pipeline protester’s excessive force claim against a North Dakota police officer.

Bismarck, North Dakota police officer Benjamin V. Swenson will have to face Eric Wayne Poemoceah’s Fourth Amendment claim in his individual capacity, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said in their opinion. Judge Jane Kelly said that Poemoceah plausibly alleges he wasn’t resisting arrest and was never given a command that he was under arrest when he was detained at Standing Rock Reservation in 2017.

Poemoceah, an Oklahoma resident and …