By Andy Rose, CNN
(CNN) — It may now be the most famous – or infamous – sign in the country. Posted above a door on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, the Quality Learning Center was missing an “n.”
For a conservative content creator attempting to call out fraud – and the supporters who made his video on day care centers in Minneapolis’ Somali community viral – it seemed too absurd not to mention.
“This is Quality ‘Learing’ Center,” Nick Shirley said, pointing to the sign. “They spelled ‘learning’ wrong.”
Shirley’s 42-minute video posted the day after Christmas quickly spread, prompting stepped up immigration enforcement, frozen federal funds and more biting rhetoric against the Somali community from President Donald Trump.
Although Shirley’s encounters with other businesses were often more dramatic, the misspelled sign and its locked door made Quality Learning Center a focus of criticism aimed at the state government and Gov. Tim Walz for a system opponents say has allowed fraud to run rampant in Minnesota.
“These are not real businesses,” Shirley told CNN’s Whitney Wild this week, pointing to the Quality Learning Center. A man identifying himself as a manager for the center told a local TV station there was “no fraud going on whatsoever.”
CNN is looking into Shirley’s claims that this and other Minneapolis-area day care centers are committing fraud.
Federal law 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 told CNN Tuesday. No fraud charges have been filed against Quality Learning Center.
Records show the business has faced repeated questions of whether the service it is providing is meeting state standards, but none of the violations suggested fraud.
Here’s what we know about the Quality Learning Center.
According to figures provided to CNN by the state House Republican Caucus, Quality Learning Center was set to receive $1.9 million from the Child Care Assistance Program – known as CCAP – for 2025. It has received nearly $10 million from CCAP since 2019, the document shows.
The caucus told CNN the funding figures were obtained from the state Department of Human Services, which did not respond to CNN’s request for confirmation Wednesday.
State GOP leadership said they raised concerns about day care centers, including Quality Learning Center, months ago.
“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 does not take applications directly from day care centers. Instead, qualified working parents and other eligible caregivers who make less than the program’s income limit apply directly to the state for assistance, which is paid to the day care center.
A budget forecast produced in November by the agency that runs CCAP says it’s projected to cost the state $56 million in the 2025 fiscal year. Another $101 million in funding for the program was expected to come from the federal government.
Quality Learning Center’s most recent inspection – which state officials say are done unannounced – was on June 23, the facility’s licensing record shows.
“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 said Monday of centers covered in Shirley’s video, adding that new site visits would be conducted this week. The department did not respond to multiple requests from CNN for whether those additional visits have been completed and what the results were.
“There’s no fraud going on whatsoever,” said Ibrahim Ali, who identified himself as a manager and son of the owners of Quality Learning Center, to CNN affiliate KARE on Monday. He said Shirley’s video was taken before the business had opened for the day.
“If you look around, there’s cars now because our employees are here, our children are here,” he said on Monday.
Shirley’s video came 11 months after a similar visit to Quality Learning Center from a reporter for local TV station KSTP, who also was told by a worker that the building was not yet open because it provides after-school care, with posted operating hours of 2 to 10 p.m.
State DHS records show Quality Learning Center was cited for 121 violations from May 2022 to June 2025, including 10 in the most recent inspection, listed as a licensing review. Citations included having an unqualified substitute and failing to have proper documentation for children’s medicine. None of the violations suggest that the building was empty.
The state records also show correction documents were submitted and approved in response to the violations.
But even without allegations of fraud, Quality Learning Center’s license has previously been in jeopardy.
In May 2022, site inspectors found 27 violations, 10 of them repeats of previous 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,” said a publicly filed notice in June 2022.
Although Shirley’s video implied the day care was empty, several of the violations noted in that report involved overcrowding, with too many children in some rooms and too few adults supervising them.
Staff lacked training, the 2022 notice said, and one person misidentified themselves to investigators.
The citation focused on a lack of documentation for many children. “There were several children present who did not have files,” the letter says, adding that “staff were unable to provide the first and last names for most of the children present.”
Although it remained on conditional status for two years, Quality Learning Center was never suspended, according to state records. It has twice been fined $200 for allowing the background check on an employee to expire.
On Tuesday afternoon, the sidewalk in front of the facility had become a hive of activity – including the return of Nick Shirley – as media and Shirley supporters watched adults escorting children in and out. A CNN crew was kept back from the property, told by an unidentified person that being in the parking lot would be considered trespassing.
Determining exactly how many children are served by Quality Learning Center – now, or in the past – is difficult from state records. The facility is licensed to provide care for a maximum of 99 children, but Ali, the center’s manager, told KARE it serves anywhere from 50 to 80 children on an average day.
The state Department of Human Services has not responded to CNN’s requests for details about enrollment figures.
CNN has been unable to reach the business or its registered owner, Siman Aden, using listed phone numbers, and it is not clear if they have an attorney.
Questions about the current status of the business were complicated by conflicting statements on Monday.
“Quality Learning Center closed just over a week ago,” Brown said in a news conference, an assertion repeated in a statement to CNN from Walz’s office.
But observers found kids arriving at Quality Learning Center that same afternoon, resulting in a raft of online conspiracy theories. Quality Learning Center “decided to remain open,” a department spokesperson told the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Speaking to CNN outside the building Tuesday, Nick Shirley dismissed the idea that seeing children entering the building disproved his video.
“They’re showing face right now,” he said.
CNN reached out to Brown’s agency for more information about why it initially thought the center had closed. The state licensing database shows Quality Learning Center’s license was renewed through the end of 2026.
And as for that missing letter “n”? Ali told KARE it was a mistake by the graphic designer. By Tuesday, work on a fix was underway.
CNN’s Whitney Wild and Chris Boyette contributed to this report.
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