Your local library has more to offer than a good book. A library card can connect you with job-search help, classes and events, computers, free or discounted tickets to museums and even 3D printing.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with her guests about the wide range of resources libraries provide, how to access them and how the role of public libraries is changing.

Guests:

• Jennifer Baker is community relations manager for Metropolitan Library Services Agency, or MELSA, which supports eight public library systems across the Twin Cities. She works to connect people with the resources and services available through the region’s libraries.

• Maureen Hartman is the director of St. Paul Public Libraries. She oversees its library branches, mobile library and online services.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.   

After months of searching to fill the role of president at Leech Lake Tribal College, school leadership announced in June that Erin Stresow would take on the role.

Leech Lake Tribal College is a two-year institution that offers transfer, career and technical degrees. Its mission is to provide higher education grounded in Anishinaabe values and culture. The school is in Cass Lake within the boundaries of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe reservation in northern Minnesota.

An investiture ceremony was held on Monday evening to formally celebrate Stresow taking over the position, which had been held by interim president Stacy Lyon. Stresow started work at the college in early July.

“[I] just felt so welcomed from the moment that I stepped on this campus,” she said.

Stresow earned a doctorate in business administration and previously served as executive director of Equitable Student Success at the Community College of Aurora in Colorado and as senior director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Colorado State University Pueblo.

She has nearly two decades of experience, including roles in higher education, tribal nations, nonprofits and corporate ventures.

Despite being from Colorado, this isn’t her first time in Minnesota. She previously taught at Lake Superior College in Duluth and Pine Technical and Community College in Pine City.

Stresow has also worked in human resources for Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures and the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. She says working with the tribal nation led her on a pathway to learning more about Native American-serving institutions like tribal colleges and universities, or TCUs.

“I started to become more familiar with the institutions, and I started following them more closely,” she said. Within her first month at Leech Lake Tribal College, Stresow attended the 2026 Summer TCU Conference at Salish Kootenai College in Montana.

In her role, she will focus on the school's mission of culturally grounded higher education and implementing workforce development opportunities.

“Some that would be possibilities for LLTC is home health aides, welding technology, automotive mechanics,” Stresow said.

Stresow says school leadership is looking into grant-funded opportunities to expand its programming.

Alongside the tribal college's mission, Stresow emphasizes the school's work on Indigenous data sovereignty and hopes to expand leadership in the area. The term “data sovereignty” refers to the idea that tribal nations have a right to govern, own and control how information is shared about their communities.

“It's about our Indigenous communities being able to have a say and control over the data that gets collected about the population and how it gets used,” she said.

Leech Lake Tribal College will begin its fall semester next week.

“I'm humbled, honored and privileged to be invited into this role,” Stresow said. “I'm just really excited to start doing all of this amazing work that we already do and continue to do.”

Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.

Schools across Minnesota are starting the new school year. For families with a child entering high school, the transition can bring harder classes, changing friendships and new social pressures — along with more independence and opportunities to grow.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with her guests about how parents can support teenagers through the transition into high school. They’ll discuss how to keep communication open, when to step in and step back, and how to recognize when a child may need additional support.

Guests:

• Sharon Powell is an extension educator with the University of Minnesota. She develops resources to help families navigate major transitions.

• Christine Paton is a guidance counselor at Minnehaha Academy, a private K-12 school in Minneapolis. She helps students with academic planning, personal growth, social and emotional well-being and preparation for life after high school.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.   

Chip Rankin was eight days into his new job as Brainerd school superintendent when a 13-year-old student at Forestview Middle School died by suicide.

Just three weeks earlier, an 11-year-old student at the same school had also taken her own life.

Rankin and other school officials faced a grieving community asking: How did this happen, and what can be done to keep it from happening again?

“It’s hard because raw emotions come, and people grieve,” Rankin said. “But people want to know, why, why? Because it's hard. It just makes no sense whatsoever.”

The parents of the Brainerd students who died, Ava Starr and Alexis Thornton, say they were bullied by classmates. Rankin said the district has no record of any formal complaints, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen.

The district has hired an independent attorney to review the schools' bullying policies and how complaints are handled.

And by the start of the school year, the district will have an online system to anonymously report bullying, Rankin said. A new state law gives districts two years to adopt an anonymous threat reporting system, but Brainerd isn't waiting.

“I want to make sure we improve, because there are 1,500 kids coming back to (Forestview) in about three and a half weeks,” he said. “And I want to make sure if there's anything we could do slightly better, we're going to do it.”

But the rise in youth suicide extends beyond Brainerd, and some say it needs a broader response. Rankin said the Brainerd district has limited resources to address challenges beyond the school walls.

“This isn't a Brainerd issue,” he said. “This unfortunately is a teen issue. The research is really clear.”

Last year, Minnesota's suicide rate for children ages 10-14 was more than twice as high as the previous five years, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. The rate is even higher in rural communities like Brainerd, which often lack mental health services.

Suicide is growing fastest among children ages six to 12, said Tracie Rutherford Self, an associate professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato and associate director of the Center for Rural Behavioral Health.

“Is it horrifying to think of? Yes. Do kids know how to do it? Yes. There's enough online. There's enough access. There's enough pain,” Self said. “I think that's the key point is we don't realize how much pain some of these younger kids are in.”

An increase in traumatic childhood experiences – such as abuse, neglect or family dysfunction – could be a contributing factor. Bullying can also play a role, Self said.

Adults need to have honest conversation with younger kids about mental health and suicide, she said. Despite common fears, research shows those conversations don't put the idea of suicide in kids' heads.

“The moment we start having open, honest conversations, people suddenly feel free to talk about it,” Self said. “Before, they're ashamed, they're embarrassed, they don't want to have those conversations because they're afraid of freaking people out or burdening others.”

Technology can aggravate problems

Smartphones and social media mean problems that once ended at school can now follow kids home, Rankin said. He recently learned about a seventh grader at Forestview who received more than 400 bot messages in five minutes telling him to kill himself.

“What if you're in the wrong place that day – just mentally feeling down, not feeling good about yourself?” Rankin asked. “These are adolescents. Their range of emotions can really vary.”

The school district is hiring a social worker dedicated to Forestview to help connect families to resources. And Rankin said cell phones will be off limits during the school day for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

On his desk is a copy of Jonathan Haidt's book, “The Anxious Generation.” Haidt argues that the transition from flip phones to smartphones with front-facing cameras and social media has triggered a mental health crisis, especially among teenage girls.

As a principal, Rankin supported giving every student a device to take home. Now, as a parent, he questions how much screen time and online access are healthy.

“I think parents really have to arm themselves with the research to see what could we do better, because we're going to have to,” he said. “This is a partnership.”

Limited resources

The Brainerd school district has limited funding and staffing to tackle mental health, Rankin said.

The district has just one counselor for every 1,000 students. That’s well below Minnesota’s average student-to-counselor ratio of 558 to 1, which is one of the worst in the nation, according to the American School Counselor Association.

The Brainerd district also contracts with a mental health clinic for services, but community resources are also stretched thin.

“It's kind of like healthcare if all you do is rely on an emergency room when you're in a crisis, and you don't go to the clinic,” Rankin said. “I feel like right now we're funded and staffed for emergency situations.”

The shortage of school counselors is a statewide problem, says Marcus Schmit, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

“We need to continue to reach kids where they're at with mental health education,” Schmit said. “And we know that schools are one of the most effective places to get connected to students.”

Parents, teachers and coaches also need training to recognize when a child is struggling, and know how to start a conversation, Schmit said.

“Kids understand it. They're open about it. They talk about it,” he said. “We have to do more to equip the adults around them to provide them with that support.”

Enlisting the community

In Brainerd, Rankin said it will take an all-hands-on-deck approach to prevent more deaths.

He's launching a program to bring 500 community volunteers into schools – greeting students, being present in the hallways or helping with homework.

Sometimes, one caring adult can make a difference and keep a struggling student from losing hope, Rankin said.

“I think during COVID we we pulled up the drawbridge and closed our castle and said, ‘Everybody stay out. We're going to social distance,’” he said. “Then we never put it back down.”

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs immediate mental health support, call or text the Minnesota Lifeline at 988.

The federal government is laying out a new vision for Head Start programs nationwide. A proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services would have Head Start change its approach and standards for teaching toddlers and preschoolers, shifting more of those decisions to the states. That could affect classroom sizes, health guidelines and more.

MPR News host Cathy Wurzer spoke with Tom Sheridan, deputy director of the National Head Start Association, about the proposed change and how it might affect children.

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player above.

By Becky Z. Dernbach | Sahan Journal

A federal judge dismissed a Department of Justice lawsuit against Minneapolis Public Schools’ policy aimed at retaining teachers of color on procedural grounds Monday.

The decision is the latest twist in a case that began as part of a deal to end a 2022 teachers’ strike and was taken up in court by conservative activists, leading to a four-year legal fight.

In his order, U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz, an appointee of George W. Bush, made clear he had “grave doubts about the legality of the racial discrimination in which MPS is forced to engage” under its collective bargaining agreement with the teachers union. The policy in question, which the district and union agreed to following a three-week educator strike in 2022, allows the district to retain “underrepresented” teachers, rather than strictly follow seniority order, during staff reductions. Schiltz said that policy could lead to a Black teacher being retained over a white teacher on the basis of race.

Still, Schiltz said, the lawsuit must be dismissed due to a quirk in how federal law governs discrimination cases. Since the policy was governed by a collective bargaining agreement, Schiltz said, the union was a necessary party to the lawsuit. But the Department of Justice did not and could not include the union in the lawsuit, because under federal law, the U.S. Attorney General can only bring lawsuits alleging a pattern or practice of discrimination against governmental entities — not against private entities like labor unions.

“The Court concludes that this action cannot proceed ‘in equity and good conscience’ without the Union,” Schiltz concluded.

Schiltz said that any aggrieved teacher could file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is tasked with enforcing discrimination laws against private entities.

A Department of Justice official said the agency was reviewing the order and would decide on its options. The Minneapolis Federation of Educators did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a statement, Minneapolis Public Schools officials said they were pleased with the court’s decision and remained committed to the district’s collective bargaining agreements.

Four years of legal wrangling

Schiltz’s dismissal of the federal lawsuit marks the latest chapter in the policy’s four-year legal saga.

The union and district agreed to the policy in March 2022 as part of a deal to end a three-week strike.

Studies have shown that a more diverse teaching workforce can boost education outcomes. But in Minneapolis Public Schools, like many districts in Minnesota, the teaching workforce is disproportionately white compared to its student body. Minneapolis Public Schools serves a diverse student population — about a third of students are white, a quarter Black, and a quarter Latino. But state data show that about three in four of their teachers are white.

Typically, teacher layoffs happen on the basis of seniority; the most recently hired teachers are first to be cut. Since teachers of color are more likely to be recently hired, these cuts disproportionately affect them. The 2022 policy in the collective bargaining agreement was an attempt to better retain teachers of color during these circumstances.

The provision in the contract to exempt “underrepresented” teachers from seniority-based layoffs attracted attention from national conservative media and legal groups. In August 2022, a Minneapolis taxpayer sued over the policy, claiming her tax dollars were being used for illegal discrimination against white teachers. The taxpayer, Deborah Clapp, was represented by the right-wing organization Judicial Watch and Minneapolis lawyer Daniel Rosen, who is now the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota. (Rosen did not represent the Department of Justice in the current federal case.)

Ultimately, Clapp’s lawsuit made its way to the Minnesota Supreme Court. In January 2025, days before Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term as president, the Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed Clapp’s lawsuit, saying she lacked standing. Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, said he’d ask Trump to investigate the case as a “blatant civil rights violation.”

And the Trump administration promptly did. On May 5, 2025, the Department of Justice sent an initial notice of investigation letter to Minneapolis Public Schools. In December, the agency sued, and Schiltz heard arguments in May 2026.

Though the contested language has led to four years of legal wrangling, it’s not clear that it’s had much impact on Minneapolis teachers.

In court, Minneapolis Public Schools noted that the Department of Justice had not identified a single teacher affected by the policy. The district has made extensive staffing cuts in each of the last three years. But Timothy Sullivan, a lawyer representing Minneapolis Public Schools, told the court in May that “in none of those instances was the challenged contractual language applied to determine whether a teacher was excessed or laid off.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented Segal, announced the settlement Aug. 6. The university said the agreement resolves all outstanding claims and includes no admission of liability or wrongdoing by either party.

“The University remains focused on advancing our core educational mission and promoting thoughtful inquiry across all of our centers, departments and programs,” university spokesperson Briana Reenshuler said in a statement.

Segal, an associate professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, was offered the University of Minnesota center’s director position and a tenured faculty appointment in June 2024 following a national search.

Days later, two members of the center’s advisory board resigned over the appointment. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas also criticized Segal’s selection, citing his writings about Israel’s war in Gaza. Segal has described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.

Then-interim university President Jeff Ettinger withdrew the offer on June 10, 2024, five days after it was made.

The Center for Constitutional Rights said university records obtained through a public records request show donors contacted administrators opposing Segal’s hiring and warned that financial support for the university could suffer if he became director. The organization argues the university withdrew Segal’s offer because of his protected speech and violated his First Amendment rights and principles of academic freedom.

The university has not admitted those allegations as part of the settlement.

Minnesota State University, Mankato, the second largest college in the state, is planning to cut 60 jobs across all departments at the school in order to address a $22 million budget shortfall.

MSU Mankato President Edward Inch told MPR News that the deficit was exacerbated by rising operating costs due to inflation and stagnant state funding. A nearly four percent drop in international student enrollment contributed to the deficit as well.

Inch said cutting staff is not something he considers lightly but is necessary because employee compensation makes up about 75 percent of the university’s general fund budget.

“They’re not easy, and there are people involved,” Inch said, “which makes them painful. But they are choices that I believe need to be made now to offset worse choices later if we waited another two or three years.”

The budget proposal calls for 17 employees to be laid off, the rest of the job cuts would come through early retirements and by not filling vacant positions. Those affected will be notified the week of Aug. 24.

There will also be cuts to discretionary spending that includes removing 21 graduate assistant positions, freezing professional development funding for administrators, and ending the lease for space at the Hubbard Building.

The big budget cuts come a year after MSU Mankato began refining its academic portfolio and eliminated 87 degree and certificate programs.

MSU Faculty Association President and professor Jim Dimock told MPR News that some budget cuts were expected but he added that the job cuts will still hurt.

“It’s not like we didn’t sense that something like this announcement was going to be coming,” Dimock said. “And we’ve [the faculty and other employee unions] been putting a lot of energy into working together.”

“For the first time in years, actually, the presidents of the biggest unions on campus are all meeting together regularly,” Dimock said. “We are probably in the best place possible to really organize and push for alternatives to what President Inch is proposing.”

As for the people being laid off, Dimock said at least four of them are faculty members.

“They moved here, they brought their families here, they had every intention of doing their best work here,” said Dimock. “And now they’re going to go.”

But Dimock noted that other employee groups, including maintenance staff, will be hit harder by the layoffs.

“One of the real questions that we have for President Inch is, how did you make these decisions? Why did you elect to cut from these programs and these administrative units and these support services? What was the rationale?” Dimock said.

The university said the number of students enrolled remains steady, but Inch said changes in federal policy and visa processing has created additional challenges to international students who want to enroll. MSU Mankato has about 1,800 international students from more than 100 countries.

International students tend to pay much higher tuition, and Inch said there is a 3.9 percent drop in international student enrollment for the incoming class, which amounts to about 200 fewer students than last year.

Inch said these cuts will help eliminate a good chunk of the deficit and that the university is “financially stable.”

“Whenever you’re talking about people who live in your community, have families in your community, none of these decisions are easy,” he said. “I wish we were not in a place where we had to make these decisions … it’s challenging to go through this process, even though in the long run, it’s the right choice.”

Nonetheless, faculty association president Dimock said there’s a need for greater accountability from the university’s administration, and he questions why the same issues persist despite similar challenges being faced by other institutions.

“This is something that, frankly, we hire a president of a university to deal with exactly these kinds of things, and so we want to know why this is still happening? Why are we still cutting?” he said. “And what is it that we’re going to do to get out of this? And who ultimately, is going to be held accountable? What we seem to have from our perspective is a lot of top-down decision making and then bottom-up accountability.”

Minnesota student test scores have struggled to recover since the pandemic. But there's something the data doesn't show: the students choosing not to even take the tests.

In some districts, as many as 60 percent of students now opt out of standardized testing. That's according to a new report from the progressive think tank North Star Policy Action. The organization says the number of students opting out has tripled since 2019.

Aaron Rosenthal is research director at North Star Policy Action. He spoke with MPR News host Clay Masters about what the data show.

Press play above to listen to their conversation.

Minnesota State University, Mankato, the second largest institution of higher learning in Minnesota, is facing a $22 million deficit heading into the new school year.

MSU Mankato is attempting to close the gap by cutting 60 positions via layoffs, early retirements or not filling already open positions. This all comes just a year after budget problems drove the elimination of 87 degree and certificate programs.

University President Edward Inch says rising operating costs, state funding that's not keeping pace and a decline in international student enrollment have combined to cause the financial struggle.

Jim Dimock, a professor and president of the MSU Faculty Association, said that communication between unions is strong right now.

“For the first time in years, actually, the presidents of the biggest unions on campus are all meeting together regularly,” he said. “We are probably in the best place possible to really organize and push for alternatives.”

Dimock said that four faculty positions have been laid off but union members of AFSCME 638, which represent general maintenance work, is seeing around seven layoffs. He also said he’s meeting with Inch at least once a month and a university provost twice a month.

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player above.

If you have student loans, keeping up with the rules hasn’t been easy. Over the past few years borrowers have navigated payment pauses, loan forgiveness efforts, court challenges and the return of monthly payments.

Now, another major change has arrived. As of July 1, new federal rules have reshaped parts of the student loan system, restricting repayment options for many borrowers and borrowing rules for future students.

MPR News host Angela Davis and her guests talk about what these changes mean for borrowers, how they affect monthly payments and how people can make informed financial decisions about their student loans.

Guests:

• Chris Farrell is a senior economics contributor for MPR News and Marketplace.

• Shannon Doyle is a certified financial counselor and program director of partnerships and education with LSS Financial Counseling.

Here are some resources that were mentioned during the show:

• Federal Student Aid

• Federal Student Aid Estimator

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.    

The long legal battle to erase the debts of nearly half a million federal student loan borrowers who say they were defrauded by their colleges is finally coming to an end, after a recent court ruling in a lawsuit that has spanned three presidential administrations.

The class-action suit, originally filed against the first Trump administration seven years ago, centered on a federal rule known as borrower defense. The rule is supposed to allow borrowers to petition the U.S. Education Department to erase their debts if a school has lied to them — about things like their job prospects, their credits' transferability or their likely salary after graduation.

During Trump's first term, thousands of borrowers who claimed they had been ripped off by predatory schools waited years to have their borrower defense claims reviewed. Finally, advocates sued, arguing that, under then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the department had deliberately and illegally stopped processing claims and wrongfully denied others without considering the merits of their cases.

The suit has endured long enough to bear the names of three different education secretaries: from Sweet v. DeVos in 2019 to Sweet v. Cardona during the Biden administration, and now Sweet v. McMahon for Trump's second term.

"At the end of the day, this settlement has impacted over 450,000 people, and it's improved their personal balance sheets by over $23 billion," said Eileen Connor, executive director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending (PPSL), the advocacy group that filed the suit against the department in 2019.

Once all of the required loan discharges and refunds are completed, Connor says the Sweet settlement will be the largest ever against the U.S. government.

Why it has taken so long

In 2022, the Biden administration agreed to a landmark settlement in the class-action suit, pledging that borrowers who had attended a predetermined list of more than 150 mostly for-profit colleges would receive full and automatic relief from their loans.

Not only that, but the settlement also allowed more than 250,000 additional borrowers to apply for relief during a brief, post-settlement period in 2022. It required the department to review those new claims within a set period of time or the loans in question would have to be discharged.

The second Trump administration revealed in court documents that it had processed only 60,000 of those post-class applications by the court-appointed deadline.

The current Education Department has argued in court that it needs more time — 18 months — to properly review so many applications, "ensuring that taxpayer funds are only disbursed to those borrowers who are entitled to relief on the merits."

But, in a July 17 ruling that likely means the end of this legal fight, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit told the department that the obligations of the settlement were clear early on — and yet the department waited three years to raise an objection.

Ellen Keast, an Education Department spokesperson, told NPR in a statement that the Sweet settlement "imposed an unrealistic deadline."

She said, "The Department has complied in good faith with court orders, and we believe the court erred in not granting our reasonable request."

‘I’m really angry about all the years that my family suffered under these loans’

Jessica Feindt is one of the post-class borrowers who's been waiting years for relief. She lives near Flint, Mich., and was one of the first in her family to go to college. She enrolled at University of Phoenix, hoping to earn an undergraduate degree in psychology.

"They really marketed heavily in the area. It was on every radio station, every newspaper. It was everywhere," Feindt says.

Feindt did earn her degree — and in less than four years. But she took out a lot of debt to do so. "I paid a lot out of pocket. I paid through student loans. I had all federal loans because poor people cannot get [private] loans."

But, she says, she realized later that the school's recruitment counselor had repeatedly misled her, including telling her that her degree would be accepted by the Michigan graduate programs she was interested in applying to next. It wasn't. In 2022, she filed a borrower defense claim, joining that post-settlement group.

In court documents filed in April as part of its appeal, the Education Department revealed that, after the Sweet settlement of 2022, it had provided some $12 billion in loan discharges and/or refunds to nearly 300,000 federal student loan borrowers who claimed to have been defrauded. After the July ruling, that dollar amount will continue to grow considerably.

Connor likens this case, about schools defrauding borrowers, to the historic settlement against Big Tobacco. Like cigarettes, she says, these student loans to predatory schools are "toxic products."

Less than a week ago, Feindt logged in to her federal student loan account, and her college debts were gone — erased soon after the latest developments in the Sweet case.

"I feel like I should be happy," Feindt says, "but I'm really angry about all the years that my family suffered under these loans."

Edited by: Nicole Cohen
Research by: Will Chase

Copyright 2026, NPR

Of all the money that funds Minnesota’s public schools, there is a stream of funding that comes from a trust built over 150 years ago.

The Permanent School Fund is an account established in 1858 that funnels dividends from timber or mining sale leases to schools. The bulk of public school money comes from the state and the amount of money spent per student is determined by a formula created decades ago.

On Saturday, a law goes into effect that will add a question on the ballot in November for voters to amend the Minnesota Constitution and increase money going to all schools from that old permanent fund.

It’s a way of bolstering education budgets without increasing taxes, advocates say.

Kirk Schneidawind is the executive director of the Minnesota School Boards Association and said there was a time where schools were taking in $0 from that fund. Now it’s up to around $68 per student and this vote would increase it another $40 per student.

“It's going to help all of our 329 public school districts, our charter schools, as well as our tribal schools,” Schneidawind said. “This money is sitting in this Permanent School Fund and not being utilized.”

Listen to the conversation by clicking the player above.

Luis Ottley, the head of St. Paul Academy and Summit School, will resign his post at the prestigious private school later this month. The move comes after a series of controversies involving Ottley.

Last month a parent sued the school, alleging leadership at the academy retaliated against him and his family by threatening to expel their child. The lawsuit alleges the decision came after families had gathered and planned to sign a letter of no confidence in the head of school.

The lawsuit also alleged that school leadership mishandled accusations of sexual harassment against students and censored the student newspaper.

“Dr. Ottley has been a steady and thoughtful leader during what has been a productive and challenging chapter for both our school community and the Twin Cities,” David Kristal, the board president, wrote in an email.

Ottley has served as head of St. Paul Academy since 2022. In a parting note to the school, Ottley said the past few months had “given my family and me a great deal to ponder.”

He said he’d reached his decision to resign after much reflection. “It has been an absolute honor to serve this remarkable community. Together we have navigated some incredibly trying times, both within our school walls and across the Twin Cities,” Ottley wrote in a statement Monday.

Martin Luther College in New Ulm is looking to reinstate its licensure status.

In late June, the Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board voted to discontinue eligibility for MLC.

The college is still accredited, and the decision only impacts freshman and new transfer students training in teacher education programs.

MLC lost its eligibility because it failed to provide enough documented evidence and consistent assessments needed to prove specific teacher education programs continued to meet state-mandated academic standards.

President Rich Gurgel said the school has already taken steps such as hiring new admin and consultants to make sure the college is able to maintain licensure eligibility in the future.

“Those steps give us the confidence that we’re on the right track to restoring this,” Gurgel told MPR News. “We’re going to stay focused on this and get this task done.”

Though a small college, MLC had 658 full-time undergraduates during the last school year, of which 70 percent are teacher education students. MLC is owned by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) and produces teachers for the fourth largest private school system in the country.

MLC is expecting between 130 to 140 incoming students for the next school year. Gurgel said he personally reached out to each student to inform them about the PELSB decision.

“I’ve been in contact with each one of them,” Gurgel said. “Some fascinating back-and-forth conversations, but we’re trying to make sure they know we’re thinking about them, and we’re doing all we can to get this taken care of with them in mind.”

MLC graduates can continue to graduate as Lutheran teachers and be prepared to serve in WELS schools. They can also graduate as ministry-certified and are eligible for a call into the teaching ministry. The decision doesn’t impact staff ministry or pre-seminary students.

PELSB rules usually require a three-year waiting period for institutions to reapply for licensure. However, MLC can request a variance to apply earlier.

Gurgel said the goal is to make sure the college is able to restore its licensure before students graduate in the next four years. He added if licensure hasn’t been restored by the time affected students graduate, MLC is committed to providing assistance in covering the costs of obtaining a license after graduation.

“We will partner with them. We will find ways that it can be done wherever they're going to be serving, if you're in Minnesota or elsewhere around the country,” he said. “We will partner with them so that that process moves forward for them. Our anticipation is that well before they graduate, we will have worked hard to restore license eligibility.”

The Brainerd-Baxter community is grieving after two middle-school students died by suicide within a few weeks.

The deaths have sparked difficult conversations about bullying and mental health, along with the roles of schools and communities in protecting young people.

Last weekend, despite scorching heat, a crowd lined a busy Brainerd street for what organizers called a peaceful assembly. They held signs reading "Stop bullying" and "Be kind. You never know who is fighting to stay."

Other posters displayed photos of two smiling girls, 11-year-old Ava Starr and 13-year-old Alexis Thornton. Both were students at Forestview Middle School in Baxter.

Ava died by suicide on June 19. Alexis took her own life just three weeks later on July 10. Both families say the girls were bullied by other students.

Chantel Smith, Alexis’s mom, described her heartbreak.

"Waking up every day and realizing she's not coming out of her room, or hearing her voice, seeing her jump around, smile, laugh, giggle … Those are the moments I'm going to miss the most,” Smith said.

Alexis's parents both wore purple shirts with their daughter's photo as they accepted hugs from friends and strangers.

“It feels amazing to see everybody wants to see change,” Smith said.

Alexis’s parents say she was bullied in and outside of school. Alexis was biracial, and her parents said some of the bullying targeted her skin color and physical features.

"It made such a beautiful girl want to change her appearance,” said her dad, Brent Willis. “She was created beautiful. There was nothing wrong with my daughter. Nothing.”

The girls' deaths have prompted calls for the Brainerd school district and the community to do more to prevent bullying and suicide.

Eleven-year-old Elizabeth Houle attends Forestview Middle School and knew Ava, who was her age.

"Bullying is not OK,” Houle said. “Some people think that everyone revolves around them, but it's not true. People have emotions."

Elizabeth’s mother, Sandy Houle, said her own children have experienced bullying at school. She said she hopes the community can find ways to better support struggling students, whether that's stronger consequences for bullies or more counseling in schools.

"We need to get to the root of why that’s what people think is the solution, and do what we can to help stop all this bullying, cyberbullying,” she said. “It's horrible. People can be anonymous and say whatever they want."

Efforts to educate on mental health, suicide

At a Brainerd school board meeting last week, Superintendent Chip Rankin said the district is offering counseling and support to students and families.

Rankin said the district will be looking at any gaps in staffing, programs or training it needs to close to support the mental health and well-being of all its students.

"Our people will return better prepared and better supported than ever to care for our kids, and that's a promise I intend to keep,” he said.

Suicide among younger children is becoming increasingly common. It’s now the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. for children and teens ages 10 to 14, said Marguerite Ohrtman, a teaching associate professor and counselor educator at the University of Minnesota.

“We're definitely seeing more and more younger students complete suicide,” Ohrtman said.

She said one contributing factor might be the increasingly young onset of puberty, during which time adolescents can struggle with emotional regulation and impulse control. Bullying, especially online through social media, also can play a role in self-harm and suicide, she said.

After such a terrible loss, people are often quick to blame and ask what they can do differently, Ohrtman said.

“Sometimes it's really hard in grief not having the answers,” she said. “And when someone commits suicide, we don't necessarily have the answers.”

Ohrtman said a key to reducing bullying and preventing suicide is educating people on how to deal with big feelings, engage civilly with people you disagree with, watch for warning signs that someone is struggling and get them help when needed.

"It comes down to parents, guardians. Everybody needs to get involved in this,” she said. “It's not just the Brainerd community. This is something as a country, as humans, we need to do better."

‘Speak up if you know of anyone who’s struggling’

People at Sunday's gathering said they'll continue pushing for change. Ava's aunt, Shannon Miller, read a statement from Ava’s family.

We want to share the message that bullying is never OK. Mental health is important to support and address.

Today is about spreading the word of kind, being kind to those around us. We miss our Ava more than words can say, and we want to do our part to make sure that this does not happen to anyone else's baby.

Love and hold your babies close, and speak up if you know of anyone who's struggling with their mental health. Call 988 if you need support, or reach out to your family and friends.

Miller said the family wants to make sure no other family has to endure the same loss.

"It doesn't cost anything to be kind,” Miller said. “Clearly, it's an issue everywhere, and we need to come together and figure out how we can break the cycle."

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs immediate mental health support, call or text the Minnesota Lifeline at 988.

America’s college campuses are entering a period of major change. The pool of traditional college-age students is shrinking, and many young people are rethinking whether college is worth the cost.

MPR News guest host Kerri Miller and her guests talk about why colleges are expecting fewer students, how public and private institutions are preparing, and what’s influencing whether — and where — young people decide to pursue higher education.

Guests:

• Nathan Grawe is a professor of economics at Carleton College and is one of the country’s leading experts on the college enrollment cliff. He is also the author of “Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education," and “The Agile College,” which helped bring national attention to the coming decline of college-age students.

• Suzanne Rivera is the president of Macalester College in St. Paul. She has been the president since June of 2020.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.  

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.    

Many Americans give up on studying another language after finishing a high school or college foreign language requirement.

But some adults are diving into learning a new language to connect with their heritage, communicate with neighbors or co-workers, as a door to travel and culture, or just to give themselves a mental challenge.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with her guests about the joys and challenges of learning a new language as an adult.

Guests:

• Amanda Dalola is an associate professor of linguistics and director of the Language Center in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota. She studies how people learn languages. She trained in Romance linguistics, speaks several Scandinavian languages and is currently learning Finnish, Norwegian and Korean.

• Julian Nye has been learning Spanish for the past three years through language apps, conversation groups and St. Paul Public Schools Community Education classes. He works in human resources for a Twin Cities nonprofit organization.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.    

Minnesota officials hoped to phase in the state’s first-ever statewide K-12 health education standards by 2028, but that timeline is in jeopardy now after an administrative law judge objected to the state’s plan to implement the proposed standards.

Dozens of educators, students and experts spent months putting together the new standards, which also include guidance on teaching CPR, nutrition, consent, media literacy and puberty as well as preventing abuse, pregnancy and suicide.

An administrative law judge review is typically a noncontroversial last step in the state rulemaking process.

On Thursday, however, Minnesota Chief Administrative Judge Jessica Palmer-Denig said the Minnesota Department of Education failed to comply with rulemaking requirements by not giving adequate notice to state lawmakers about the agency’s plan.

The department also failed to do an adequate job of providing the public information about the costs of implementing new education standards, and didn’t show the rule was related to the agency’s objective, she added.

“The lack of specificity in the rules affords the Department discretion beyond that allowed by the governing statutes,” Palmer-Denig wrote in her ruling.

The ruling included suggestions for next steps such as better defining some of the terms in the benchmarks such as “functional health knowledge” or “enhance health and well-being.”

Palmer-Denig also suggested the department withdraw the rule altogether.

Minnesota Department of Education officials say they are reviewing the order to “determine next steps.”

‘Devastating’ decision

Those who worked on creating the standards were shocked to find the process halted near the finish line.

“The first thing I thought about was the young people of Minnesota, and that they are going to once again be lagging behind other states and other places that do have health standards,” said Jill Farris, a standards committee member and director for training and education at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Healthy Youth Development.

She called the judge’s decision “devastating” and said she hoped that whatever next steps are taken will “build on the great content that 40 volunteers came together to create.”

Minnesota has teaching standards for science, math, English language and social studies, among others. But unlike most other states, it has never set statewide standards for health education, leaving those decisions to local school boards.

In 2024, with DFLers in control of the Legislature and the governor’s office, lawmakers passed a bill requiring standards to be developed.

State Rep. Sydney Jordan, DFL-Minneapolis, said she wanted to see the administrative law judge’s decision appealed.

“Every student has a right to a comprehensive health education. The judge’s decision to reject what were already long overdue standards imperils that right,” Jordan said in a statement. “This is not how we make our kids healthier, and I support MDE’s efforts to appeal this ruling.”

Rasana Mamdani, who also served on the health education standards committee graduated high school last month. She also said she was disappointed.

“Minnesota students can’t wait anymore for this type of education,” Mamdani said.

“Health and health knowledge is imperative to young people's success in life in what they're doing with their relationships and their bodies and their health,” she added. “The idea that we have to wait even longer for the standards to come about is just going to impact Minnesota students in such a big way.”

Meg Bartlett-Chase, executive director of Honest Sex Ed Minnesota, a nonprofit that advocates for comprehensive sex education, said she was “shocked and disappointed” by the decision.

“This is nearly two years of really intensive, meaningful work on the part of all the committee members who represent experts in several different health education fields, teachers themselves, community members, students and then thousands of public commenters that all had their voices, their opinions and their values implemented into these standards,” Bartlett-Chase said.

She said she hoped officials would be able to “find some way forward that doesn’t involve having to start from square one.”

The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth has a new president. Brenda Kelly began work this week as the 14th president of the college, which was founded by Benedictine Sisters in 1912.

Kelly takes over the top position at the private college at a difficult time. While enrollment is strong, the school is reportedly facing a $5.6 million budget deficit for fiscal year 2027 and recently laid off several faculty members.

For the past eight years, Kelly was provost and dean of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. Before transitioning to administration, she taught and conducted research in biology, chemistry, and biochemistry for more than a decade at Gustavus.

She was welcomed to the St. Scholastica campus by staff, faculty and students Wednesday, greeted by a trombonist playing “When the Saints Come Marching In,” a nod to the Catholic college’s Saints nickname.

"Our mission, our values, and the way in which we live them out, is what drew me here, even amidst the headwinds and challenges facing higher education today, because at St. Scholastica we are prepared to take on those challenges,” Kelly said during a press conference before the event.

“Our commitment to hospitality, to welcoming every person, is precisely what this polarized and divided world needs right now,” Kelly added.

About 3,000 graduate and undergraduate students are enrolled at St. Scholastica’s three academic locations, including at its main campus, which is perched on a hill in Duluth near the University of Minnesota Duluth, and at a health sciences center in Duluth, and at another facility in St. Cloud. The school also offers online courses.

Kelly said St. Scholastica seeks to bridge the gap between a “rigorous liberal arts tradition and the vital practical needs of our workforce.” She called enrollment strong, especially in the college's graduate health professional programs.

"Our PT [physical therapy] program, our OT [occupational therapy] program, the PA [physician assistant] programs, we have really large applicant pools and a much smaller number of students that can enter those programs,” Kelly said.

The popularity of such programs appears to be reflected in St. Scholastica’s enrollment figures, which are up from about 2,200 students a decade ago.

Still, the school is facing budget challenges. According to a report in the Duluth News Tribune earlier this year, the school is confronting a budget deficit of more than $5 million, and has laid off several faculty members.

Kelly declined to talk in more detail about the school’s budget issues.

She succeeds Barbara McDonald, who's retiring after serving as president of the college since 2019.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams, in another setback for transgender people.

The court’s conservative majority, which has repeatedly ruled against transgender Americans in the past year, ruled that state bans in Idaho and West Virginia don’t violate the Constitution or the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

More than two dozen other Republican-led states have adopted bans on female transgender athletes, and the decision seems certain to extend to them as well.

Left unresolved by the outcome are lawsuits challenging state laws and regulations in Connecticut, California and elsewhere that permit transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity.

Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 16-year-old high school sophomore in Bridgeport, West Virginia, has been taking puberty-blocking medication, has publicly identified as a girl since age 8 and has been issued a West Virginia birth certificate recognizing her as female. She is the only transgender person who has sought to compete in girls sports in West Virginia.

Pepper-Jackson has progressed from a back-of-the-pack cross-country runner in middle school to statewide champion in the shot put. She beat the second-place finisher by two feet in last month's West Virginia championship meet.

In the Idaho case, Lindsay Hecox sued over the state’s first-in-the-nation ban for the chance to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University in Idaho. She didn’t make either squad because “she was too slow,” her lawyer, Kathleen Hartnett, told the court during arguments in January, but she competed in club-level soccer and running.

Prominent women in sports have weighed in on both sides. Tennis champion Martina Navratilova, swimmers Summer Sanders and Donna de Varona and beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings are supporting the state bans. Soccer stars Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn and basketball players Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart back the transgender athletes.

In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled LGBTQ people are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace, finding that “sex plays an unmistakable role” in employers’ decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate.

But last year, the six conservative justices on the nine-member court declined to apply the same sort of analysis when they upheld state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

The states supporting the prohibitions on transgender athletes argued there is no reason to extend the ruling barring workplace discrimination to Title IX.

Idaho’s law, state Solicitor General Alan Hurst said, is “necessary for fair competition because, where sports are concerned, men and women are obviously not the same.”

Lawyers for Pepper-Jackson argued that such distinctions generally make sense but that their client has none of those advantages because of the unique circumstances of her early transition. In Hecox’s case, her lawyers wanted the court to dismiss the case because she had forsworn trying to play on women’s teams.

NCAA president Charlie Baker told Congress in 2024 that he was aware of only 10 transgender athletes out of more than half a million students on college teams. But despite the small numbers, the issue has taken on outsize importance.

Baker’s NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women’s sports after President Donald Trump, a Republican, signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to compete only on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8 percent, and 724,000 people ages 13 to 17, or 3.3 percent, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Each year, students with MPR News Radio Camp in partnership with ThreeSixty Journalism at the University of St. Thomas travel to an organization to interview experts and produce a radio story with their reporting. This year, the Special Olympics USA Games happened to be in the Twin Cities on the same week as Radio Camp.

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Radio Camp worked with the Special Olympics to give the students an opportunity to conduct one-on-one interviews and ask questions during a press conference. They met with athletes, Special Olympics leaders and fans to create audio stories from their reporting.

Here are the 2026 Radio Campers and their stories. Click on the audio links to listen.

Maryama Ahmed goes to Columbia Heights High School. She interviewed Cindy Mori, the vice president of events for 2026 Special Olympics USA Games.

Yunus Ahmed goes to Rosemount High School. He interviewed Amy Murray, the senior vice president of special events for the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games.

Kendra Andrews graduated this year. She interviewed Matt Allen, more famously known as the hip-hop artist Nur-D, who performed at the Special Olympics USA games.

Lundy’n Jasper goes to Minnehaha Academy. She interviewed Greg Epperson, the regional president and managing director for Special Olympics.

Naomi Miller graduated from Richfield Senior High School. She interviewed country artist Madden Metcalf, who performed at the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games.

Naimo Mohamed goes to Ubah Academy. She interviewed Vikings offensive tackle Walter Rouse, who volunteered with the Special Olympics USA Games.

Olaoluwaotan Olaiya graduated from RiseUp Community High School. She interviewed Olympic athlete Carrie Tollefson, who volunteered with the Special Olympics USA Games.

Vivian Ogunro goes to Breck School. She interviewed Jon Berry, the in-arena host for the Special Olympics USA Games.

TaNiah Queen goes to Burnsville High School. She interviewed musician Paul Peterson, who performed at the Special Olympics USA Games.

Lola Rohl graduated from Minnetonka High School. She interviewed Danny Striggow, a Minnesotan who now plays for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He volunteered with the Special Olympics USA Games.

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents is meeting Friday to vote on a budget that contains a 3.8 percent hike in undergraduate tuition for the 2026-27 school year.

The university’s proposed budget also calls for about $44 million in cuts to programs. The proposal estimates that reduction will cut at least 165 academic jobs, and another 64 positions in support areas, like research development, outreach programs and library support services.

The proposed tuition increase is similar to the inflation rate and is less than last year’s hike of 6.5 percent. Still, the proposal got backlash at a public hearing before the Board of Regents earlier this month.

At that June 12 hearing, former student Sasmit Rahman said the proposal is frustrating.

“Tuition keeps rising, but I’m not understanding what students are actually paying for,” Rahman said. “Classes and support services continue to be cut.”

Student fees and room and board costs would also go up, with rates varying by campus. According to the proposed budget, the cost of attendance for a student at the Twin Cities campus — including tuition and other fees — would go up 4.7 percent.

In its announcement of the budget proposal, the university pointed to limited state funding and rising inflation.

“We are taking disciplined, responsible steps to address today’s financial challenges while strengthening our long-term foundation,” University of Minnesota executive vice president for finance and operations Gregg Goldman said.

Speakers at the Board of Regents’ public hearing on June 12 said those cuts are worrying, too.

Eric Daigre teaches in the university’s English department. He said some departments have already had to cut valuable classes and programs due to low funds, particularly in the College of Liberal Arts.

“There’s more than one way to balance a budget,” Daigre said. “Both last year and this year, my concern is that we're balancing the budget by defunding the actual educational mission of the university: education and research.”

Indus School in Baudette closed its doors nearly three years ago. The South Koochiching-Rainy River School District cited declining enrollment and budget shortfalls at the school, which covered pre-K through 12th grade. At the time, many residents rallied against the decision, calling it draconian.

Now it’s up for sale for $1.7 million, a price that includes all “learning materials” in the building. According to the listing, that means, “microscopes, pottery wheels, band equipment and everything needed for metalworking and building trades.”

Indus’ campus is listed with Move It Real Estate Group, headquartered in Grand Rapids.

Barry Woods is the agent in charge of the sale. He said the property has been on the market for about a week, and since then, he’s received numerous calls from around the country, including some dog mushers.

“There's thousands of miles of trails and logging roads, it's really an outdoors enthusiast’s paradise,” said Woods, who is also a part-time fishing guide. “Across the river, there's a sturgeon hatchery run by the First Nations from Rainy River in Ontario. It's a fantastic area.”

Woods said this is the first school he’s ever sold and that it could be the perfect spot for a manufacturing facility.

“Maybe we'll lure DigiKey over here from Thief River Falls,” he said.

The campus also includes the former school’s 28,000-square-foot hockey arena, complete with a Zamboni. Woods said the arena could also be repurposed and used for hosting equestrian events.

About six months ago, the Indus School property had been purchased by its current, private owner, whom Woods said is an entrepreneur. After the purchase, an open house was held for the community, where the buyer shared potential plans for the northern Minnesota campus.

According to Cathy Nelson of the Facebook group SOS INDUS, which was created in opposition of the school’s closure but still remains active, some of the ideas then included transforming it into a “drug and alcohol treatment center, daycare, assisted living, or summer camp for sports,” to name a few.

At the time of its closure, Indus School had 92 students enrolled there. They have since graduated or were re-enrolled in their resident school district or a different one. In 2024, the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the school board's decision to shutter the school.

Indus was the only school in the area. Its shutdown has forced some students to bus hours a day roundtrip to the school they now attend.

Two of the U.S. Department of Education's biggest responsibilities will shift to other federal agencies: safeguarding student civil rights and supervising programs for students with disabilities.

The Trump administration said Tuesday it will move the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). OSERS manages programs that support students with disabilities, offering guidance and oversight to ensure states follow the landmark Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a law that guarantees disabled students access to an equitable public education.

The administration announced it would also move the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to the U.S. Department of Justice. OCR's staff of civil rights attorneys are tasked with protecting students in K-12 schools and universities from discrimination based on disability, gender, race and national origin. OCR has been in tumult for months, targeted repeatedly by the Trump administration for staff cuts, then reversals of those cuts.

The moves to HHS and DOJ would further dismantle an agency that President Donald Trump has vowed to close, and it would leave the Education Department with a shrinking number of responsibilities.

In a press release, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said of shifting special education programs: "Through our partnership with HHS, we will align federal services with the goal of strengthening academic outcomes and supporting individuals with disabilities so that they can achieve greater independence, key life skills, and meaningful employment."

And of moving civil rights enforcement, McMahon said the partnership between OCR and the Justice Department would "ensure stronger, more coordinated civil rights enforcement and robust protections for student privacy."

While the administration claimed the move would better serve some of the nation's most vulnerable children, disability rights advocates sounded the alarm.

"This is another vindictive attempt to undermine public education," says Denise Forte, president and CEO of Ed Trust, a think tank focused on addressing education inequity. "And at this moment, when we know that children with disabilities need more support, not less — HHS is not the place for that."

"My stomach drops for children and parents of infants, toddlers, children and young adults with disabilities," a former OSERS staffer told NPR. "The move would separate out oversight of the implementation of IDEA and it would decimate civil rights protections that have been in place for more than 50 years." The employee, who has disabilities and is the parent of an adult with disabilities, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear professional repercussions for speaking publicly on this issue.

The former employee says without federal oversight ensuring the rights of students with disabilities, schools' legal responsibility to disabled students could go unchecked. "If nobody's looking, they could buy football jerseys rather than pay for a one-on-one aide for a child with autism."

This is the latest effort in McMahon's self-described push to "peel back the layers of federal bureaucracy by partnering with agencies that are better suited to manage programs and empowering states and local leaders to oversee the rest."

Edited by: Nirvi Shah and Nicole Cohen
Visual design and development by: LA Johnson

Copyright 2026, NPR

Commencement speeches are meant to mark an ending and a beginning. And the best ones offer wisdom that lasts beyond graduation day.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with three Minnesotans who were commencement speakers this year about the messages they shared with graduates and what the rest of us can learn from them.

Guests:

• Myles Frueh earned his associate’s degree from Alexandria Technical and Community College in May and was a student speaker at the school’s 2026 commencement ceremony. He double-majored in business management and sales marketing, was vice president of the student senate and was a campus tour guide. He also serves as a vice president for Collegiate DECA, an international nonprofit that prepares high school and college students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management.

• Maria Reeve is the executive director of culture and careers at The Minnesota Star Tribune. Prior to her current role, she was a managing editor for the newsroom. Before that, she was the executive editor for the Houston Chronicle. And she was a reporter and editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press for 19 years. She delivered the 2026 commencement address for the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

• Della Schall Young is the CEO and principal hydrologist of Young Environmental Consulting Group, a Minnesota-based environmental consulting firm specializing in water resources, stormwater management, and environmental planning. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences at the University of Minnesota and was invited back this year to give the undergraduate commencement address.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.    

Minnesota's student population has grown significantly more diverse over the past few decades. Today, nearly 40 percent of the state's K-12 students identify as students of color.

But, according to the Minnesota Department of Education, just 7 percent of the state’s teachers identify as teachers of color.

The gap is even wider for Black educators. While Black students make up about 12 percent of Minnesota's student population, Black teachers account for just 1.4 percent of the state's teaching workforce. And Black men make up only 0.5 percent of all K-12 teachers in the state.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with leaders of Black Men Teach, a Twin Cities organization that’s working to recruit, prepare and support Black male elementary school teachers in Minnesota.

Guests:

•  Markus Flynn is the CEO of Black Men Teach, a nonprofit committed to increasing the number of Black male elementary school educators in the Twin Cities. He used to teach fifth and sixth grade science at Prodeo Academy in Minneapolis.

• Devon Minke teaches third grade at North Park School for Innovation in Columbia Heights.

• Keondre Lewis teaches second grade at North Park School for Innovation in Columbia Heights.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.    

In the woods of southeast Minnesota, outdoor educator Kat Anderson taught a group of 5th graders how to start a fire.

“We want to gather as many of these teeny, teeny, tiny sticks as possible,” Anderson instructed them. “We want to think of our fires as a hungry baby. The baby needs to be constantly fed, or else it's going to cry.”

These students attend Academia In Lak’ech (which until recently was named Academia Cesar Chavez), a dual Spanish immersion charter school in St. Paul. But they took a break from classroom learning recently to travel to Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center near Lanesboro. Over the course of two days, the children learned how to build teamwork, their own self confidence, plus hands-on science and nature lessons.

The trip had barely begun, and student Gabby Roman was already enjoying the change of scenery.

“I've been having a really good time. Nature kind of helps you calm yourself down. I feel really comfortable,” Gabby said.

Calm is exactly what these kids needed after a frightening and tumultuous winter and spring.

Many students at Academia In Lak’ech are immigrants or the children of immigrants and most speak Spanish at home.

During the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown called Operation Metro Surge, many Lak'ech families went into hiding out of fear of being detained and deported, said Norma Garcés, who is the school’s executive director and superintendent. Parents stayed home from work and students retreated to online learning.

Getting out of the Twin Cities and into nature was a welcome departure from the state of anxiety and uncertainty Lak’ech students lived in for months.

"We know culturally that being outdoors and being here is healing, so our kids need a lot of healing right now,” Garcés said. “Our families need a lot of healing, our teachers need a lot of healing. So part of being here is part of the healing process."

Making outdoor experiences more accessible

Garcés says this trip would have been unaffordable to the school and the students’ families without the help of a new program called Outdoor School for All. The Legislature created it last year, providing nearly $900,000 in grants to schools across the state for experiences like this. That grant money is covering about 40 percent of the Lak'ech school's cost.

Schools must show financial need for grant funding through a rigorous application process and the money can be used to cover expenses such as transportation and teachers’ extra time, as they often plan field trips like this while off the clock, said Colleen Foehrenbacher, who is executive director of Eagle Bluff, one of five accredited outdoor education programs in Minnesota.

She was among the outdoor educators who lobbied the Legislature last year for the grant funding. She said the goal is to make the experience more accessible to more kids — especially those from disadvantaged families and urban areas — and to show them what’s possible in their futures.

“It could lead to somebody deciding they want to go into the legislature to protect the environment, it could lead to somebody going into a natural resources career,” she said. “It could lead to a family starting to have a garden in their backyard."

So far, the program allowed about 2,000 more students to attend outdoor education programs around the state this year.

Friendship is necessary for survival

While Lak’ech’s students had a challenging few months earlier this year, the immigration crackdown they endured taught them a lot about their community and the importance of supporting each other in difficult times, said Garcés.

She said she saw that empathy on full display at Eagle Bluff, while the kids learned survival skills.

"It's interesting in survival, right now they're teaching them, ‘What would you take to survive?’ And one of the items [the kids say] is friendship,” Garcés said. “The kids are like, ‘you're not going to survive by yourself. We need to stay friends in order to survive’."

Back outside, 10-year-old Jason Isaac is building a shelter. He said food and water are obvious things he needs to survive. But so, too, is friendship.

“It might be hard to survive [on your own], because you have to collect everything by yourself,” Isaac said.

Right now, the Outdoor School for All program is a pilot that only covers excursions for students from 4th to 12th grade. In coming years, supporters hope to secure more funding from the legislature so kids as young as kindergarten can attend, too.

Pregnancy, birth rates, and sexually transmitted infections among Minnesota teenagers dropped significantly in 2024, continuing a decades-long downward trajectory, according to a new report by researchers at the University of Minnesota. But the study finds that there also continues to be sharp racial, ethnic, and geographic disparities in these rates here that are among the most stark in the country.

The 2026 Minnesota Adolescent Sexual Health Report, published by the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Center for Healthy Youth Development, found that:

From 2023 to 2024, the rate at which 15 to 19 year olds in the state gave birth decreased by 6 percent and the rate of the same aged teens getting pregnant decreased by 15 percent. Since their peak in 1990, teen pregnancy and birth rates in Minnesota have declined by more than 80 percent for adolescents under 20 years. Sexually transmitted infections declined between 2023 and 2024 with a 1.85 percent decrease in chlamydia rates and noticeably large 25 percent decrease in gonorrhea rates.

“We are seeing some pretty amazing and remarkable gains and wins here,” said Jill Farris, training and education director with the Center for Healthy Youth Development. “What we are seeing is some pretty big societal shifts in terms of how young people are making decisions about their sexual health and about sexual behaviors.”

Sexual activity amongst young people has reached historic lows. For example, in 1992, about a third of ninth graders reported having sex. More than 30 years later in 2025, only 7 percent of that age group reported having sex.

While sexual activity and being sexual is a normal and typical part of adolescence, Farris said the trend of teens having less sex is a positive development, as young people today may be seeking other ways of engaging in sexual intimacy. She said that more young people are defining relationships differently and increasingly identifying in more diverse ways than their parents or grandparents had.

“I think young people's definition of sex is way more broad than a lot of adults,” Farris said. “I think that young people are actually thinking a lot more broadly and creatively about their gender, about their orientation, and about all kinds of behaviors that work for them in their lives that I think are quite honestly maybe not even on the radar screen of the adults that are endeavoring to help.”

Minnesota’s teen pregnancy, birth and sexually transmitted infection rates are some of the lowest in the country, but Farris said the state also has some of the widest racial and geographic disparities in teen pregnancy, birth and STI rates.

For example, teen pregnancy and birth rates are higher in greater Minnesota and the state’s rural counties, where youth often don’t have adolescent-friendly reproductive and clinical health services easily within reach. And, of the reproductive health options that do exist, not all are confidential or accessible outside of school hours.

“Young people in a lot of rural counties have to go a pretty long distance to be able to get to a sexual health clinic, and a lot of counties don't even have a sexual health clinic in the county,” Farris said.

There are also large racial and ethnic disparities, especially in regard to sexually transmitted infections. Gonorrhea rates are 18 times higher among Black youth and seven times higher among American Indian youth.

“We should feel grateful and proud of these strides that young people have made, yet not every young person in Minnesota gets access to the same level of information and services and care,” Farris said.

The state is working to change that. During the 2024 legislative session, lawmakers passed a law to develop statewide health education standards so there’s more consistency in how sexual education is taught and administered across the state. Farris said the standards are currently being reviewed by a judge, and they expect to learn more by the end of this month.

Minnesota is one of just a few states that doesn’t yet have these statewide standards. Sexual education in schools is often left up to the teacher’s discretion.

“If your teacher wants to teach this, isn't really put off by the topic, and knows how important it is, you might get some sex ed information,” Farris said. “You might also have a teacher that would really rather not touch this with a 40 foot pole.”

Sexual education alone can’t prevent pregnancies and STIs, but Farris said it’s far and away the best strategy to provide young people with the most accurate information about their changing bodies and their sexual health.

Moving forward, Farris said now is not the time to take the foot off the gas pedal. Increasing numbers of youth identify as LGBTQ+ and gender diverse, underscoring the need for inclusive, affirming sexual health education and youth-centered health services at schools. And she hopes families and caregivers see this report as a call to action – a reminder of how important their role is as sexuality educators at home.

“That is something that reaches across [the] political divide, right?” Farris said. “It's not a controversial opinion to say that parents and kids should talk more.”

Fast fashion produces clothes cheaply and quickly. Many of us have grown accustomed to clicking on an ad and getting a new top, dress or a pair of shorts on our doorstep just days or sometimes hours later, only to throw out the clothing after it quickly grows out of style.

But the pollution that clothing causes doesn't fade away like fashion trends.

Much of the clothing that’s tossed away ends up in landfills and produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas and a significant contributor to warming the climate. Decomposing clothes also can release PFAS, or forever chemicals, and microplastics.

And that’s where an innovative machine designed and built by an engineering professor and her students at the University of Minnesota Duluth could help, by recycling unwanted clothing instead of landfilling it.

It's called the "fiber shredder." It's the brainchild of Abbie Clarke-Sather, associate professor in mechanical and industrial engineering at UMD, who’s been fine-tuning the contraption with her students for the past decade.

It's about the size of a copy machine. Inside, two drums rotate in opposite directions, with teeth on them “kind of like what you'd find on a fish hook,” she said during a recent demonstration.

Clarke-Sather dons a face mask, turns on a loud air filter and feeds strips of an old, holey, pink cashmere sweater into the top of the machine. Instead of chopping up the fabric, the drums pull apart the fibers. Ninety seconds later, she’s peering inside a bag full of pink thread that looks like cotton candy.

“Look at how long these threads are!” Clarke-Sather exclaims. “Two, three inches long? That's the thing that's really cool about this, is that it preserves the thread length," she explains.

Similar machines tear apart the fabric into smaller pieces or chunks. That material can be “downcycled,” repurposed into less valuable products ranging from insulation and carpet padding to stuffing for mattresses or dog beds. But it can't be spun back into yarn to make clothes again. That requires threads at least two inches long.

“Everybody's going for that holy grail of apparel-to-apparel recycling,” Clarke-Sather said. The fiber shredder, she said, makes that possible.

She’s close to sending the machine out for sale or rent to businesses seeking to recycle their textile waste. One of the places she plans to start is True North Goodwill in Duluth, which receives millions of pounds of donated clothes every year.

Goodwill sells about 60 percent of the donations they take in. The rest is compressed into thousand pound bales and stacked on the warehouse floor.

"These clothing items were either something that wasn't quality enough to sell — it had rips, tears and stains — or it was an item that just didn't sell,” said Scott Vezina, Vice President of Community Engagement at True North Goodwill.

Many of these leftover clothes will be shipped overseas. Some are repurposed into cleaning rags. But Vezina believes there are untapped markets for this vast amount of used textiles.

“Where the fiber shredder comes in is that it ends up repurposing the material in such an innovative way, that we're going to be able to discover more uses for it, more partners that want to be able to keep more of it out of landfills," Vezina said.

And the amount of textile waste that's landfilled is only increasing. The latest estimate from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that about 17 million tons of textiles were landfilled in 2018, a 50 percent increase over the previous two decades.

One industry development experts say is largely to blame is the growth of "fast fashion," the mass production of cheap clothing that people tend to view as disposable.

"And so we have these increased rates of disposal that are piling up and creating more and more textile waste,” said Tasha Lewis, a professor in fashion and retail studies at the Ohio State University.

“We usually aren't getting rid of clothing because it's threadbare. It's usually because we don't like it, it's too old, we don't have a use for it,” Lewis said.

Only about 15 percent of textiles are recycled, according to the EPA. There isn’t an infrastructure in place in textile recycling similar to what exists for recycling aluminum cans or glass bottles, said Rachel Kibbe, CEO of American Circular Textiles, which advocates for greater clothing reuse and recycling.

There are large recycling plants just beginning to come online in the U.S. that use a chemical process to break down clothing into their basic building blocks. Mechanical recycling that doesn’t use chemicals is more challenging, Kibbe said, because of all the different fabric blends that make up clothing.

The “fiber shredder” struggles with some fabrics, mainly spandex and waterproof material, said Clarke-Sather. But the machine successfully pulls apart blended fabrics, including polyester blends, into usable threads.

It’s also small and portable. “I can literally just put this on a trailer and drive it to your retail store, and you can recycle what you need to,” she said. “Nobody's recycling at this tiny scale.”

Her students are working on a version that’s six times larger than her prototype that she hopes to station at Goodwill to help create a larger market for recycled fibers. But she acknowledges some kind of policy change is likely needed for that market to grow.

“There are some technologies, but there's not guaranteed buyers. So we need to actually incentivize people to put recycled fibers into their products,” said Clark-Sather.

Two years ago, California passed the nation’s first clothing recycling law that could help to jumpstart a market for recycled fabric.

It doesn’t require consumers to recycle clothing. Rather, clothing brands that want to sell their products in the state have to join a “producer responsibility organization” and pay a fee that funds the collection, reuse and recycling of textiles.

“By 2030, we're going to start collecting more clothing in the state of California than we have in the history of the planet,” said Kibbe. “The spirit of the bill is to recycle that which cannot be resold” and to keep clothing out of landfills.

Without such a law in place in Minnesota, Clarke-Sather is working hard to get the fiber shredder into the community. She’s lending it out to organizations that want to try it out, including a community art studio in Minneapolis. She even holds textile recycling office hours.

“I've talked to people that want to recycle their personal stashes all the way to a company across the ocean that wants to recycle their manufacturing waste,” she said. “I really want to encourage people to be creative.”