ST. PAUL — Public and charter school students across Minnesota reported improved health factors — from mental health and cyberbullying to how many fruits and vegetables they eat — in the 2025 Minnesota Student Survey.

The Minnesota Department of Health on Tuesday released the results of the triennial survey of the state’s fifth, eighth, ninth and 11th grade students.

State officials noted positive trends across multiple categories, including mental health. Compared to 2022, students’ responses to questions about anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation improved. In fact, the percentage of high school juniors “considering suicide was at its lowest in more than a decade,” per MDH’s news release.

“Though students continue to struggle with mental health, the current survey shows some positive trends and reversals toward improved well-being and healthier behaviors that are encouraging to see,” said Minnesota Commissioner of Health Dr. Brooke Cunningham. “We can build on this momentum by continuing to foster safe environments that make young people feel included, engaged and like they belong.”

The students also reported increases in educational engagement, feeling safe at school, their consumption of fruits and vegetables, their general health, and belief that teachers and others in their lives care for them.

The survey also notes some decreases in cyberbullying, sexual activity, substance use (including alcohol, tobacco and cannabis), and missing school due to anxiety, boredom or feeling unsafe.

“This survey shows that focused efforts by schools and educators, supported by state investments, have increased a sense of belonging at school,” said Willie Jett, the state’s education commissioner. “When students feel safe, supported and nourished, they are more engaged and ready to learn.”

And while fewer students reported having an adverse childhood experience — traumatic events such as witnessing violence, being abused, being unhoused and so on — 40% did report at least one ACE, Cunningham said.

“(This) highlights the importance of supporting Minnesota families to secure basic needs, such as food and health care, and address the root causes and adverse effects of incarceration, homelessness and substance misuse,” she said.

New questions in the 2025 survey had to do with social media, screen time and gun violence. Of the high school students surveyed, 90% use social media each day, and four out of 10 juniors said time spent on social media contributes “to them having trouble getting homework, chores or other major responsibilities done.”

More than half of those high school students, at least once per week, use technology between midnight and 5 a.m. on school nights.

As for gun violence, 6% of surveyed high school students said they have witnessed people using guns to threaten or hurt another person.

The results of the 2025 survey, Jett said, will help inform state lawmakers and other decision-makers.

More than 119,000 students participated in this year’s survey.

Related Articles

Trump’s crackdown on immigration is taking a toll on child care workers

Prospective employees, companies negotiate fast-changing new world of AI

Education Department workers targeted in layoffs are returning to tackle civil rights backlog

Forest Lake school board deadlocks on filling vacancy, holding up other business

US appeals court rejects Trump administration bid to halt grants for school mental health workers

DULUTH — Buying a ticket to space may now be possible, but astrotourism doesn’t require making a large cash transfer to Elon Musk. Instead, you can just call John Fredrikson at Gunflint Lodge in Grand Marais.

“There are nights when we get back from a run to the city and get out of the car to walk into the house, all tired out,” Fredrikson said, “but you have to stop and just soak up the number of stars you see, because it is spectacular.”

Since purchasing the historic lodge in 2016, Fredrikson and his family have increasingly promoted their property as a place to stay if you’re seeking an epic view of the cosmos.

“Astrotourism wasn’t really a (term) at that point,” recalled Fredrikson, though he noted the lodge has long attracted stargazers. “We’ve leaned into it.”

“It’s really blown up in the last couple of years,” said Kjersti Vick, marketing and public relations director for Visit Cook County. “People really are interested in getting that experience.”

The county will host its annual Dark Sky Festival Dec. 11-13. Vick and Visit Cook County Executive Director Linda Jurek launched the festival in 2018 after noticing how many people were coming to the county to photograph the stars.

“We started talking with them, and they were like, what if we did some kind of night sky thing?” Vick remembered. She and Jurek thought, “That’s a great idea.”

Visit Cook County doesn’t have hard numbers regarding how many people come to see the sky, but its staff say the festival has grown considerably and the organization has seen spiking traffic to web pages with information on the topic.

“More and more of the population is urban and really doesn’t have a lot of exposure to rural or more remote places,” said Fredrikson, who has also seen an increase in stargazers. “I think a lot of people are rediscovering the striking beauty of the dark skies and the celestial beauty up here.”

Exactly how dark is Cook County? On the Bortle dark-sky scale, which measures darkness from one (darkest skies on Earth) to nine (inner-city sky), Cook County is an average of two, said Vick.

“Level one is really dark,” said Vick. “That’s like the middle of Lake Superior. … If you look at a map of the U.S., from Cook County, basically everything east of the Mississippi is a level five or brighter.”

Light pollution has significantly impacted the Northland in recent decades, said Bob King, an amateur astronomer (and News Tribune columnist) better known as Astro Bob.

“I used to be able to look at all the constellations from downtown (Duluth) back in 1980,” King said. “You can forget about doing that now, but we can still get to dark skies where you can see the Milky Way, and it only takes (driving) 20 minutes out of town.”

Related Articles

Renovations at MSP’s Terminal 1 bring modern, brighter look to airport

St. Paul declares snow emergency after Tuesday night storm

Newspaper delivery delayed on Wednesday due to weather conditions

Federal agents use pepper spray on crowd in Somali neighborhood of Minneapolis amid Trump crackdown

Rebecca Noecker officially announces for Ramsey County Board

As people have recognized the growing scarcity of dark skies, smartphones and social media have made it easy to find and photograph phenomena like northern lights, then show off your dramatic captures.

“We have apps for the northern lights so you don’t have to miss a display of the aurora,” King said. “It will alert you when there is something in your area.”

To go with that smartphone, you can even get a smart telescope.

“These are these little instruments you just set down on your lawn or your deck,” King explained. “You direct this little telescope to take a picture of all kinds of things in the sky. I’m talking galaxies, star clusters, the sun, the moon. It takes remarkable photographs, and you really don’t need to know anything about astronomy.”

Of course, sometimes it’s nice not to rely on an app. That’s why the Gunflint Lodge is acquiring a telescope for naturalists to use when helping visitors to explore the night sky in planned programs.

Experts on hand for the Dark Sky Festival will include NASA scientists visiting through a relationship Visit Cook County has developed with the Goddard Space Flight Center.

“We also have some really fun photographers that are going to be giving tips and tricks on on how to catch the night sky,” Vick said.

Photographers on hand will include King, who is presenting on the birth of stars and on what ordinary people can do to reduce light pollution.

“Many things are affected by light pollution,” King said. “Nocturnal habitats for insects and animals are also key.”

Despite the overall upward trend in light pollution, King has seen some wins locally. He was especially glad to see the former streetlights in downtown Duluth, which scattered light directly into the sky, removed from Superior Street during that street’s recent reconstruction.

Now, King said, “Superior Street is just right in terms of lighting. There’s no glare in your eyes. It’s softer, and it points downward rather than up. The difference is amazing.”

Why hold a festival in December, already a busy month with holiday events? Well, historians will tell you it’s no coincidence that many cultures have traditional celebrations coinciding with the winter solstice: it’s the darkest time of year.

“The sun sets at like 4 p.m. and it doesn’t rise until 7:30 in the morning,” Vick said. “It seems like a really great time to promote the night sky.”

Although Cook County’s astrotourism numbers are increasing, the draw of the Gunflint Trail in December isn’t quite up there with, say, Yellowstone National Park in July.

“It’s maybe 15 to 50 people at any given presentation, but it’s always a different group of people at each presentation,” said Vick about the Dark Sky Festival. “People are coming up and they’re doing parts of the festival, and they’re up here to do all the other great things that we have.”

Cook County is as dark as it is because of its relative isolation, and that means astrotourists are getting a front-row seat to the sky.

“We have a lot of resorts and cabins and places in the woods,” Vick said. “You can rent a cabin in the woods and have your own private dock that has this beautiful night sky view, and people just gravitate towards that.”

“There’s a great interest in preserving the night sky while we still have it in our region. It’s lost in so many other areas,” said King. “It’s part of humankind’s heritage, and to lose that hurts.”

Related Articles

Federal agents use pepper spray on crowd in Somali neighborhood of Minneapolis amid Trump crackdown

Dad (or Mom) Jokes not welcome in your house? Channel them into the MnDOT snowplow naming contest

Winter storm brings 3-5 (plus) inches of snow and a rough morning commute

Fire guts Prior Lake mosque; cause remains under investigation

Trump’s attacks on Minnesota’s Somali community cast a spotlight on fraud cases

By JANIE HAR

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Self-driving Waymo taxis have gone viral for negative reasons involving the death of a beloved San Francisco bodega cat and pulling an illegal U-turn in front of police who were unable to issue a ticket to a nonexistent driver.

Related Articles

West Virginia National Guard member killed in DC shooting is laid to rest

Botulism outbreak sickens more than 50 babies and expands to all ByHeart products

NASA loses contact with its Maven spacecraft orbiting Mars for the past decade

Trump says U.S. has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela

Foreigners allowed to travel to the US without a visa could soon face new social media screening

But this week, the self-driving taxis are the bearer of happier news after a San Francisco woman gave birth in a Waymo.

The mother was on her way to the University of California, San Francisco medical center Monday when she delivered inside the robotaxi, said a Waymo spokesperson in a statement Wednesday. The company said its rider support team detected “unusual activity” inside the vehicle and called to check on the rider as well as alert 911.

Waymo, which is owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, declined to elaborate on how the vehicle knew something was amiss.

The company has said it has cameras and microphones inside as well as outside the cars.

The taxi and its passengers arrived safely at the hospital ahead of emergency services. Jess Berthold, a UCSF spokesperson, confirmed the mother and child were brought to the hospital. She said the mother was not available for interviews.

Waymo said the vehicle was taken out of service for cleaning after the ride. While still rare, this was not the first baby delivered in one of its taxis, the company said.

“We’re proud to be a trusted ride for moments big and small, serving riders from just seconds old to many years young,” the company said.

The driverless taxis have surged in popularity even as they court higher scrutiny. Riders can take them on freeways and interstates around San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

In September, a Waymo pulled a U-turn in front of a sign telling drivers not to do that, and social media users dumped on the San Bruno Police because state law prohibited officers from ticketing the car. In October, a popular tabby cat named Kit Kat known to pad around its Mission District neighborhood was crushed to death by a Waymo.

“New York City, long positioned at the forefront of housing innovation, is falling behind,” the author writes. “The most effective innovations happen when residents are treated as partners with authority and vision.”

The North Loop neighborhood in Minneapolis in 2022. The city was the first in the U.S. to eliminate single-family zoning. (Shutterstock.com)

Across the U.S. and around the world, everyday people—tenants, workers, organizers—are transforming the future of housing in their cities and catalyzing positive change. New York City, long positioned at the forefront of housing innovation, is falling behind.

Government-led policy change can create real impact but often relies on familiar mechanisms and can limit fresh perspectives. In other cities, grassroots movements are gaining momentum and turning collective energy into tangible action. Policy makers and governance have responded to their voices. 

With a new administration entering office, it is time for the city to revitalize its housing strategy holistically, not just through top-down policy and regulatory change, but by leaning into the experiences, ideas, and energy of the public.

Resident-inspired “bottom-up” initiatives are reshaping housing policy with concrete examples emerging from cities around the world. In Minnesota, a grassroots movement called “Neighbors for More Neighbors” helped transform the public conversation on state housing policy, using art and social media campaigns to highlight how exclusionary zoning limits access to affordable homes. This later developed into a more solid, organized coalition.

With goals of increasing both housing supply and the diversity of housing options, the coalition played a strong role in the passage of the Minneapolis 2040 plan. Amongst other measures, the 2040 plan eliminated single-family zoning citywide—the first major city in the U.S. to implement this. Single-family zoning not only capped housing density but also created neighborhoods segregated by income and race. This significant regulatory change was a response to community-led demands to address both housing affordability and the legacy of segregation. 

Similar models exist internationally. In Amsterdam, Schoonchip provides another example of resident-led innovation. This sustainable, floating community of 46 homes connected by a communal jetty was conceived and organized by a citizen-led collective rather than a standard commercial developer. The homes are equipped with solar panels and water-based heat pumps and are linked by a smart grid that allows residents to share power efficiently. With an emphasis on sustainability, circular economy principles and strong social connections, Schoonschip can serve as a prototype for densely populated waterfront cities grappling with sea-level rise and climate change impacts.

Berlin offers another example of large-scale, resident-led protests which helped inspire projects such as the transformation of Haus der Stastistik near Alexander Platz. The Haus der Statistik was a large building complex and the headquarters of the GDR’s Central Administration for Statistics. After the reunification of Berlin, it fell into disrepair and eventually was slated for demolition. Activists, motivated to put it to productive use, staged a large-scale protest that sparked a collaborative city-backed adaptive reuse transformation. Today, this complex is in the process of being developed as a vibrant mixed-use space that will incorporate housing, art, social spaces, and government offices—all for public benefit and collective urban enrichment.

Community action has long been a driving force for change in New York City. Protest in New York housing history began with immigrant communities’ rent strikes against poor housing conditions and rising rents in the early 20th century, leading to the city’s first rent control laws. More recent advocacy helped lead to the passage of the Good Cause Eviction law, which protects tenants from arbitrary evictions.   

New York City recently enacted its most significant zoning update in over six decades with the “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” a comprehensive amendment aimed at expanding affordable housing and adding flexibility to development parameters citywide. While the City of Yes underwent a robust public review process and was modified based on input from community groups, it was primarily a government-led effort implementing change through an established regulatory framework. 

The examples above highlight that the most effective innovations happen when residents are treated as partners with authority and vision. When it comes to the current housing crisis, NYC has yet to fully engage with the scale of public-inspired activism and participatory resident-inspired solutions seen in other cities.    

As the city’s new leadership prepares to take office, it inherits both an urgent housing crisis and an unparalleled opportunity. New York’s greatest resource has always been its people. As we look to the future, we must share our ideas and hold our leaders accountable.

To Mayor-Elect Mamdani, your rise was powered by the same kind of grassroots energy that has spurred housing movements across the world. Now, that same ethos can guide how New York reimagines its housing future. Treat the people—tenants, workers, and organizers—as partners in policymaking. Support and invest in creative, grassroots solutions. Establish policy level support that provides the framework to make these solutions scalable. Let’s see what people-inspired creativity can achieve and rise to the challenge of making it happen right here in our city. 

Wendi Shafran is a principal at FXCollaborative Architects and is on the board of the Citizens Planning and Housing Council (CHPC). In 2024-2025 she completed a fellowship with the Urban Design Forum’s Global Exchange and traveled to Berlin to study global strategies to address the housing crisis. She recently traveled to Minneapolis to participate in the jury of the AIA Minnesota and The McKnight Foundation Affordable Housing Design Award. 

The post Opinion: What NYC Can Learn from Grassroots Housing Movements in Other Cities appeared first on City Limits.