Star Tribune
Minnesota’s free training hurt nursing assistant schools
A group of nursing assistant training schools has sued Minnesota, saying their business has been undercut by the state’s free training program.
With its no-cost training for would-be nursing assistants, Minnesota’s two-year-old Next Generation Nursing Assistant training program has been hailed as a solution to the state’s worsening health care labor shortage. But providers left on the outside of that program say they have struggled.
“Business is slow. I’m not really getting any new students through the door. I’m getting calls asking about free classes that I don’t provide and cannot provide,” said Christine Okundaye of the Nostalgia School of Health Careers in a videoconference explaining why she joined the lawsuit. “If this continues, I definitely will have to shut my doors.”
The case filed in U.S. District Court asserts that Minnesota’s program violated federal law by creating anti-competitive pricing and excluding small schools from participation. It seeks an injunction to halt the program, which presumably would boost enrollment and activity at the small schools that filed the lawsuit.
“Even the state government can’t cavalierly engage in predatory pricing to wipe out private business,” said Erick Kaardal, the attorney representing the schools.
The Minnesota Department of Higher Education declined comment per policy on pending litigation, but spokesman Keith Hovis called Next Generation “a critical investment in the health of our state. The program is helping hospitals, long-term care facilities, and veteran’s homes hire for hard-to-fill positions while breaking down financial barriers and connecting Minnesotans to careers in the healthcare field.”
Nursing assistants are vital to hospitals and nursing homes — feeding, moving and grooming patients and residents while also monitoring them for emergency needs or declines in physical or mental health. Low hourly wages of $15 to $25 make recruitment challenging, though.
The vacancy rate for nursing assistant jobs exceeded 17% in spring 2022, one of the highest rates of any occupation, according to the most recent survey by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.
The idea for Next Generation emerged in December 2021, after Gov. Tim Walz ordered National Guard members to staff nursing homes that were overwhelmed with patients amid a severe COVID-19 wave and a shortage of workers. He proposed training 1,000 certified nursing assistants, or CNAs, in one month to relieve the Guard members and increase the permanent workforce.
The program in its first two rounds offered no-cost training through 19 state colleges and five private companies to 2,500 graduates. Training through high schools also readied another 570 students as of this March to work as certified nursing assistants.
The Legislature allocated funding this spring to extend the program into a third round, in which another 307 students are being trained at 15 state colleges.
“We are proud of the important work … to address the critical shortage of Certified Nursing Assistants in Minnesota, and we are confident we will prevail in this litigation,” said Doug Anderson, a spokesman for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities.
Kardaal said he represents eight plaintiffs, including small, minority-owned businesses and training programs operated as second jobs by practicing nurses. Some still don’t understand why they couldn’t be part of the program and want an injunction to make a fresh start, he said. “Our hope is … my clients’ small businesses can thrive again.”
The lead pastor of Lakes Area Vineyard Church in Detroit Lakes said that a missionary was killed in an act of violence Friday in Angola, Africa.
Beau Shroyer moved there in 2021 with his wife, Jackie, and five children. They were working with the missionary organization SIM USA, founded in 1893 in Charlotte, N.C. SIM USA president Randy Fairman shared in a message to the Lakes Area Vineyard congregation that the Shroyers were one of the first families to move to Angola after pandemic lockdowns eased.
Fairman said many details are still unknown about Shroyer’s death. He said he got a call Friday “informing me that Beau Shroyer was killed while serving Jesus in Angola and is now with his Savior.”
“It is my belief that from his vantage point, he can see how his family will be cared for, and it is not hard for him to trust our good Father,” Fairman wrote. “From our perspective and the perspective of Jackie and the kids, we now must trust Jesus in a season that we never imagined. We must trust Him without requiring Him to give us an understanding of why He allowed this. It is difficult and stretches our faith.”
Troy Easton, lead pastor of Lakes Area Vineyard Church, said in a message to congregants that “Moments like these create so many unanswerable questions for us and it adds to the pain to know that we may never understand why our Father has allowed something like this to happen.”
“As more details became available regarding what’s next for the family, what arrangements are being made to celebrate and honor Beau’s life, and practical ways you can love and serve them, we will be certain to share them with you.
Along with his wife, Shroyer, 44, a former Detroit Lakes police officer and real estate agent, leaves behind children Bella, Avery, Oakley, Iva and Eden.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
This year, its jump-scares and lore landed it on Forbes’ list of “7 of the World’s Scariest Haunted Houses” alongside a 160-room mansion in California filled with “occult oddities,” a house built on an old cemetery near Chicago, and a haunted theme park in New Zealand built on the grounds of an old psychiatric hospital. The Haunted Ship, as the Irvin is known in October, is open just one more night — from 6:30 to 10 p.m. on Halloween.
“But this isn’t just a manufactured scare factory,” according to Forbes’ scare scouts, who reportedly visited the ship and had the VIP experience — which includes controlling the dialogue of a disembodied skull as visitors stream past. “In 1964, a sailor died on the ship during a boiler room accident, prompting the Duluth Paranormal Society to investigate the ship. Employees have reported seeing unexplained shadows, hearing phantom footsteps, and had objects thrown at them while doing maintenance work.”
The pilot house of the William A. Irvin is covered in cobwebs during October, a stop on the VIP tour of the seasonal Haunted Ship. (Jana Hollingsworth / The Minnesota Star Tribune)
The tour twists through the ship’s nooks, crannies and areas specific to its life on the Great Lakes — like a few gruesome dining areas where bloodied limbs are scattered about. There are creepy clowns and Victorian-era beings who stare wordlessly. A sink runs with bloody-colored water and a skeleton sits in a muddied bathtub surrounded by its innards.
The VIP experience offers a chance to roam through the ship’s living quarters alongside an ethereal character in the role of Irvin’s second wife. She sashays through the space with tales from the past, then allows you entry into private spaces where a saw blade rests in a sink and a body meant for the morgue vibrates with electrical waves on a bed. It offers a chance to dip into the pilot house, where wheels and gears are draped in cobwebs, offset in the opposite direction by a fresh perspective on the Aerial Lift Bridge.
The view from the Haunted Ship offers a new perspective on the Aerial Lift Bridge. (Jana Hollingsworth / The Minnesota Star Tribune)
There are countless dark corners for jump scares, strobe lights and tight spaces with hidden exits. There is a place designed to trigger claustrophobia. And there are mind-bending questions: Is that a person in that chair or isn’t it? Who is making that growling-moaning sound? What is that smell?
The final question is answered at the exit of the ship, where there is a running tally of how many people haven’t been able to finish the tour (90 as of Friday night) and how many have wet their pants (35).
How many people have opted out of the Haunted Ship? (Jana Hollingsworth / The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Police said they will be releasing details Monday about the shooting death of a 23-year-old man last week in New Hope.
Carnell Mark Johnson Jr., of Bloomington, was shot in the chest Thursday in the 7300 block of Bass Lake Road and died that same day at North Memorial Health Hospital, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said.
A police official said more information will be released about the shooting later Monday. No arrests have been announced.
