ST PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) impacts the lives of all state residents, as an umbrella for 12 agencies that handle duties from dealing with vehicle titles and tabs to alcohol and gambling enforcement. 

DPS is also the parent department of the Minnesota State Patrol, which enforces laws on our freeways and highways. 

With all those agencies, the DPS website is heavily used and accessed by Minnesotans for services and information that impacts their lives, and those users had not seen a major site update since 2011. 

On Thursday that changed, with the unveiling of a new and improved DPS website, redesigned to provide easier access to the most popular DPS tasks and services, improved search capabilities and a clearer path to needed information. The upgrade also features a clean design that is more mobile-friendly. 

“A modern, accessible website is more than just a convenience — it’s a critical tool for ensuring public safety. By making information easy to find and understand, we empower Minnesotans to take proactive steps to protect themselves and their communities,” said DPS Deputy Commissioner Cassandra O’Hern. “Our new website reflects our commitment accessibility and delivering the highest level of service to all.”

While state residents can still renew their driver’s license and buy vehicle tabs, access crash reports, view crime stats or request a background check online, there are also new services offered on the new site. Among them: 

• Information on the Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls Office  
• Information on how to connect with the Community Affairs team  
• Tribal relations information  
• Information on the Office of State Safety Oversight  
• A more robust newsroom
• Enhanced accessibility for documents 

Deputy Commissioner O’Hern says while the new website is more convenient, the upgrade was also critical to ensuring the public safety of all Minnesotans. 

“By making information easy to find and understand, we empower Minnesotans to take proactive steps to protect themselves and their communities,” said O’Hern in a news release announcing the website upgrade. “Our new website reflects our commitment to accessibility and delivering the highest level of service to all.”

Click here to check out the new DPS website and all its features. 

SAINT PAUL, Minn. — No matter where you’re from on the spinning globe, St. Paul Public Schools will welcome you.

State numbers show it is home to the highest population of English Learners (E.L.) in Minnesota. SPPS officials estimate 28% of their students are actively learning English, but the languages kids speak at home are always changing.

“When I first started here, most of my students were Asian,” Traci Buckle, a Como Park High School E.L and Science teacher said.

But after ten years in the district, her classrooms have evolved and Buckle said she sees more Spanish-speaking students. Administrators are noticing the same trend in E.L. students.

“The population of E.L. kids numbers-wise, is remaining the same, but the place of origin is changing,” said Sarah Schmidt de Carranza is the Executive Director of Multilingual Learning for SPPS.

Schmidt de Carranza said the district does not track students by home country. However, she said the district can assess trends in students who arrive at the district with inconsistent learning.

“The official title is Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education,” Schmidt de Carranza said. “We’re seeing more students coming from Latin America with those needs.”

Even when global conflict keeps churning, funding to help students doesn’t always keep up. According to figures provided to KARE 11 by the district, SPPS planned to spend $37.5 million dollars in 2023 on English Language services.

The state only provided $11.3 million, leaving a funding gap of $26.2 million dollars.

“Costs of everything have kind of skyrocketed over the last few years,” Schmidt de Carranza said. “There’s been increases in our labor contracts for both of our teaching staff and our bilingual educational assistance staff.”

Schmidt de Carranza said the district will pull from the General Fund to cover gaps, rather than cutting back E.L. services.

“It’s a non-negotiable,” Schmidt de Carranza said. “We spend money on the front end to educate our children to participate in a democracy, or we spend it on the back end taking care of needs that we should have taken care of in the first place.”

The investment in students with disrupted education is paying off quickly.

“I always dreamed to be a nurse to help the people back in my country,” Eh Ler Paw, a Como Park senior, said.

Paw came to U.S. from a refugee camp in Thailand during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite struggling to learn English in remote classes, Paw eventually became fluent enough to tackle the subject she found most difficult: science.

“I will go to a university to study [nursing],” Paw said. “I’m excited and nervous to do the next step.”

Four years into learning English, she’ll graduate with her best foot forward.

“When I checked, she was 21st in her entire class as far as academics go,” Buckle said, who taught Paw for several years. “When people are bilingual and trilingual and multilingual, I mean, that’s a lot of skill they’re bringing into the classroom and this ability to problem solve.”

“They’re resilient. They’re just good kids.”

MINNEAPOLIS — It’s been nearly a week since Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced that he officially shut down a Minneapolis city councilor’s wife’s food charity tied to Feeding Our Future.

The couple, Councilor Jamal Osman and Ilo Amba, has yet to answer any questions about the nearly half a million dollars they allegedly received in federal funding.

Experts say it’s unlikely that money will ever be recovered, given some of the violations in this case accuse Amba of poor record keeping and never filing taxes. 

And while she, nor her husband, aren’t facing any charges, and don’t have to answer to anything, this saga isn’t over yet. 

“Once the entity sees the writing on the wall that they’re not going to win this one, they’ll say, OK, we’re done, and pack it up and agree to do that,” said former federal prosecutor and current law professor at the University of St. Thomas Mark Osler. 

Ellison and Amba agreed to dissolve the charity called Urban Advantage Services (UAS) in October, but documents show it ceased operations in January of 2022. 

Osman was at Wednesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, but left and came back. The second time he left for good before the meeting was over and we couldn’t ask him any questions. 

KARE 11 has reached out to Osman by phone, email and at his city office several times. He was also a no-show at the city’s same meeting on Tuesday. 

The offices of UAS are also long abandoned in downtown Minneapolis. Failing to maintain a registered address is one of several violations Ellison says UAS racked up not long after it was started in 2020. He also claims it didn’t register with the Attorney General’s Office and its board of directors failed to meet.

He called the charity a fraudulent shell company that was created to perpetuate and tied to Feeding Our Future. That scheme exploited a federal program to feed hungry children during the pandemic that has since led to about 70 people facing charges, many of whom are already convicted. 

Ellison says Ambo directed federal funding to herself, her family members and co-conspirators. 

“Regardless of how it’s structured or perceived as cultural differences, that’s something that’s wrong and the government has to act on,” said Osler. “I know to some people it might seem about money, but it’s about the trust in government, it’s about the trust in charitable instincts and there was a real loss there.”

Documents show UAS was one of about two dozen related charities Ellison sued last year.

But dissolutions like these don’t preclude people from still facing consequences, depending on what, if any, evidence there is. 

Some of which will play out next year as several more people already criminally charged in the Feeding our Future case are expected to start standing trial in February.

“This was a time when kids were hungry, there was a great need there, and there’s a really big moral wrong and there is a need to address that,” said Osler.