It might now be probably the most well-known – or notorious – signal in the nation. Posted above a door on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, the Quality Learning Center was lacking an “n.”
For a conservative content creator making an attempt to name out fraud – and the supporters who made his video on day care facilities in Minneapolis’ Somali group viral – it appeared too absurd to not point out.
“This is Quality ‘Learing’ Center,” Nick Shirley mentioned, pointing to the signal. “They spelled ‘learning’ wrong.”
Shirley’s 42-minute video posted the day after Christmas shortly unfold, prompting stepped up immigration enforcement, frozen federal funds and extra biting rhetoric towards the Somali group from President Donald Trump.
Although Shirley’s encounters with different companies have been usually extra dramatic, the misspelled signal and its locked door made Quality Learning Center a focus of criticism aimed on the state authorities and Gov. Tim Walz for a system opponents say has allowed fraud to run rampant in Minnesota.
“These are not real businesses,” Shirley told NCS’s Whitney Wild this week, pointing to the Quality Learning Center. A person figuring out himself as a supervisor for the center told a local TV station there was “no fraud going on whatsoever.”
NCS is trying into Shirley’s claims that this and different Minneapolis-area day care facilities are committing fraud.
Federal regulation enforcement has been investigating fraud in Minnesota for several years, and “98 individuals have been charged in our ongoing fraud against the government cases,” Assistant US Attorney Melinda Williams advised NCS Tuesday. No fraud fees have been filed towards Quality Learning Center.
Records present the enterprise has confronted repeated questions of whether or not the service it’s offering is assembly state requirements, however not one of the violations instructed fraud.
Here’s what we know about the Quality Learning Center.
According to figures offered to NCS by the state House Republican Caucus, Quality Learning Center was set to obtain $1.9 million from the Child Care Assistance Program – often known as CCAP – for 2025. It has acquired almost $10 million from CCAP since 2019, the doc exhibits.
The caucus advised NCS the funding figures have been obtained from the state Department of Human Services, which didn’t reply to NCS’s request for affirmation Wednesday.
State GOP management mentioned they raised considerations about day care facilities, together with Quality Learning Center, months in the past.
“The (House) fraud committee … featured a number of these apparently vacant sites in a hearing that took place all the way back in February, which also included the infamous Quality Learning Center featured in the viral video,” state House Speaker Lisa Demuth said Monday.
CCAP doesn’t take purposes instantly from day care facilities. Instead, certified working mother and father and different eligible caregivers who make lower than this system’s revenue restrict apply on to the state for help, which is paid to the day care center.
A funds forecast produced in November by the company that runs CCAP says it’s projected to value the state $56 million in the 2025 fiscal yr. Another $101 million in funding for this system was anticipated to return from the federal authorities.
Quality Learning Center’s most up-to-date inspection – which state officers say are finished unannounced – was on June 23, the power’s licensing record exhibits.
“There have been ongoing investigations involving several of those centers. None of those investigations uncovered findings of fraud,” state Department of Children, Youth, and Families Commissioner Tikki Brown mentioned Monday of facilities coated in Shirley’s video, including that new web site visits could be carried out this week. The division didn’t reply to a number of requests from NCS for whether or not these extra visits have been accomplished and what the outcomes have been.
“There’s no fraud going on whatsoever,” mentioned Ibrahim Ali, who recognized himself as a supervisor and son of the house owners of Quality Learning Center, to NCS affiliate KARE on Monday. He mentioned Shirley’s video was taken earlier than the enterprise had opened for the day.
“If you look around, there’s cars now because our employees are here, our children are here,” he mentioned on Monday.
Shirley’s video got here 11 months after a related go to to Quality Learning Center from a reporter for local TV station KSTP, who additionally was advised by a employee that the constructing was not but open as a result of it supplies after-school care, with posted working hours of two to 10 p.m.
State DHS records present Quality Learning Center was cited for 121 violations from May 2022 to June 2025, together with 10 in the latest inspection, listed as a licensing evaluate. Citations included having an unqualified substitute and failing to have correct documentation for youngsters’s medication. None of the violations recommend that the constructing was empty.
The state data additionally present correction paperwork have been submitted and accredited in response to the violations.
But even with out allegations of fraud, Quality Learning Center’s license has beforehand been in jeopardy.
In May 2022, web site inspectors discovered 27 violations, 10 of them repeats of earlier violations.
“Due to the serious and chronic nature of these violations, and the conditions in the program, which impact the health and safety of children in your care, your license to provide childcare services is placed on a conditional status for two years,” mentioned a publicly filed notice in June 2022.
Although Shirley’s video implied the day care was empty, a number of of the violations famous in that report concerned overcrowding, with too many youngsters in some rooms and too few adults supervising them.
Staff lacked coaching, the 2022 discover mentioned, and one particular person misidentified themselves to investigators.
The quotation centered on a lack of documentation for a lot of youngsters. “There were several children present who did not have files,” the letter says, including that “staff were unable to provide the first and last names for most of the children present.”
Although it remained on conditional standing for 2 years, Quality Learning Center was by no means suspended, in line with state data. It has twice been fined $200 for permitting the background verify on an worker to run out.
On Tuesday afternoon, the sidewalk in entrance of the power had turn into a hive of exercise – together with the return of Nick Shirley – as media and Shirley supporters watched adults escorting youngsters in and out. A NCS crew was saved again from the property, advised by an unidentified particular person that being in the car parking zone could be thought-about trespassing.
Determining precisely what number of youngsters are served by Quality Learning Center – now, or in the previous – is troublesome from state data. The facility is licensed to offer care for a most of 99 youngsters, however Ali, the center’s supervisor, advised KARE it serves wherever from 50 to 80 youngsters on a median day.
The state Department of Human Services has not responded to NCS’s requests for particulars about enrollment figures.
NCS has been unable to achieve the enterprise or its registered proprietor, Siman Aden, utilizing listed telephone numbers, and it isn’t clear if they’ve an lawyer.
Questions about the present standing of the enterprise have been sophisticated by conflicting statements on Monday.
“Quality Learning Center closed just over a week ago,” Brown mentioned in a news conference, an assertion repeated in a assertion to NCS from Walz’s workplace.
But observers discovered children arriving at Quality Learning Center that similar afternoon, ensuing in a raft of on-line conspiracy theories. Quality Learning Center “decided to remain open,” a division spokesperson advised the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Speaking to NCS exterior the constructing Tuesday, Nick Shirley dismissed the thought that seeing youngsters coming into the constructing disproved his video.
“They’re showing face right now,” he said.
NCS reached out to Brown’s company for extra info about why it initially thought the center had closed. The state licensing database exhibits Quality Learning Center’s license was renewed by means of the tip of 2026.
And as for that lacking letter “n”? Ali advised KARE it was a mistake by the graphic designer. By Tuesday, work on a repair was underway.
NCS’s Whitney Wild and Chris Boyette contributed to this report.