MIRAMAR, FLA. (WSVN) - Just two days into the school year, The Light Academy, a private middle school in contract with the City of Miramar, faces potential closure after police ordered it to stop operating out of a local park, sparking reports of a brewing civil lawsuit.
Monday marked the Light Academy’s first day of officially operating as a school. They are based in Vizcaya Park, located at 14200 Southwest 55th Street.
With 12 students enrolled at the academy, the day went off without a hitch, but shortly after school let out that evening, Miramar Police arrived and told the principal and founder, Dr. Cassandre Davis, they could no longer operate from the park.
“At 3 p.m., we got a call that said, ‘You can not come back to the school tomorrow,’ and we asked them why once again and we were not given a reason,” said Davis
When the city refused to open the park’s gates Tuesday morning, students, staff and parents spent the day at City Hall demanding answers.
“I have everything to lose if I don’t keep it together,” said Davis.
Davis said the school had initiated a contract with the city that allowed them to operate in July. However, the city began to reverse course last Thursday, sending Davis an email that reads in part:
Following up on our earlier meeting regarding the administration’s decision to terminate the contract with Light Academy, this email serves as formal notification of that action.
Davis claims the city never formally provided any reason as to how they arrived to the decision to terminate the contract.
“We have an executed contract, July 30, 2025, signed by all parties, city manager, assistant city manager, lawyers. We moved in all of our furniture in there and then on August 5, we were told that we can’t be here for no reason,” said Davis.
It appears as though officials speculated possible concerns that led to the termination may have been related to the public and children having shared access to the same restroom.
“When we talked to some people on the phone, they said, ‘Well, we think it’s a bathroom issue because sometimes if there’s a resident who’s there, if there’s a kid in there what do we do,’ and we said, ‘What did you all do this summer? This summer, you also had a summer program in the exact same building, and whatever concerns you mitigated then we can mitigate them now,'” said Davis.
7News reached out to the City of Miramar for clarification on the dispute Tuesday afternoon.
A spokesperson told 7News they can’t provide any further information as the issue is currently in the hands of their legal department.
Parents said their children were looking forward to attending classes at the new school.
“She wanted to be able to remain a child for a little bit longer and block out the noise of what middle school tends to bring,” said Malika Wint Williams, a student’s mother.
They’re left waiting for the City of Miramar to shed some light on why this happened.
“The second day of school, you shut down a school where children need to be in to learn, that actually was very hurtful,” said Sarese Parnell, a student’s mother.
Students, like sixth graders Jedediah Louis and Aliana Lyons, are worried about what’s next with their school’s status up in the air.
“It feels bad because I was ready to go to school,” said Louis. “This is my second day of sixth grade and I want to develop and learn, so I don’t know why they’re doing this to us.”
“This morning I was excited to go into school to learn, but then I was brought here,” said Lyons. “So now I’m getting pretty worried that we did something wrong.”
7News spoke with Davis Tuesday afternoon, who said the school is currently operating out of a space inside of a public library temporarily.
Davis also said the city informed her the school must stay closed until they can plead their case in court.
“I want the City of Miramar to give us access to our classrooms, wait for us to litigate this in court, so that the courts can see that this is absolutely a breach of contract,” said Davis.
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