By AMY SHERMAN AND TODD WRIGHT
asherman@MiamiHerald.com
The Miami Herald
August 16, 2006
A Christian military academy that has come under scrutiny after a student died shut down Tuesday after Lauderhill officials discovered that it was breaking the law.
Back to Basics Military Academy never applied for an occupational license to start a school inside the Living Word Community Church at 5770 W. Oakland Park Blvd.
''They can't operate,'' said Jim Notarianni, Lauderhill code enforcement supervisor, who gave the academy and the church a notice of violation Tuesday. ``They are done here.''
Principal Lynda Browne would not comment about the school's next steps -- shaking her head when a reporter asked if she wanted to let parents know where they should take their kids today.
''Oh boy. I tell you this is a big mess,'' said one parent who did not want her name used for fear of repercussions for her son who attends the school. ``I don't understand what they are doing.''
Losing its quarters is the latest crisis for the private school, which opened last year.
Early Saturday, a 13-year-old Plantation boy collapsed and died after a day of marching and exercising on a beach with 32 other students attending a school orientation at Oleta River State Park in North Miami.
Although the cause of death won't be known for several days, some students said Alex Cullinane hadn't been eating or drinking.
The school directors have come under scrutiny since Cullinane's death.
In 1991, the state ordered Reginald Browne -- now an academy director and husband of principal Lynda Browne -- to stop referring to himself as a psychologist since he wasn't licensed in Florida.
In 1995, Reginald Browne was fired amid allegations of financial mismanagement from his job as CEO of Family Life Institute for Counseling, Education and Research, an agency that counseled at-risk youths.
GROUP HOME
His wife and son, Reginald Browne Jr., also worked at the institute, which ran a group home in Lauderhill.
Broward County and the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice revoked grants to the institute after investigations concluded that money had been misused.
On Monday, Reginald Browne tried to distance the academy from a subcontractor, Juvenile Military Training and Leadership Corp., which, he said, ran the outdoor camp.
State business records show a Juvenile Military Boot Camp Inc. with the same address as the Brownes' home in Plantation Gardens.
But there was something about the military-style Christian school that appealed to Dena Cullinane, Alex's mother.
School officials told her if a student wouldn't get out of bed in the morning, the academy would send a drill sergeant to the home. Students had to wear military uniforms and shave their heads.
Cullinane planned to have her only child, an ''A'' student, start there this week. But before, she wanted him to get a taste of what it would be like so she sent him to the four-day camp sponsored by the academy.
His father died of cancer when Alex was 1 year old.
''My whole life focused around him,'' she said, referring to her son. ``It's like a big hole. My faith is being tested everyday.''
Alex previously attended Plantation's Community Christian Academy, which closed.
The school referred Alex to the military academy.
The for-profit school served 19 students in grades 5 through 10 last year, according to state education records. Most of the children receive vouchers for students with disabilities.
Cullinane, a massage therapist, chose the school because she thought it would help her son improve his physical fitness, but she said her ''husky'' son never took to the idea. Alex was gifted academically but not in athletics, she said.
CHRISTIAN VALUES
The Brownes stressed to Cullinane that the school's core goals were to promote Christian values. They told her a teacher and drill sergeant attended each class.
''I wanted to be there for him,'' Cullinane said. ``I have no regrets as a mother, just that I wish it was a little longer and that he wasn't taken from me.''
Cullinane said Monday she will cremate her son and had no plans for a funeral service.
Miami Herald staff writers Matthew I. Pinzur and Carol Marbin Miller contributed to this article.
