Praxis Institute Student Defense Lawyer | Miami

Praxis Institute is a for-profit institution with campuses in Miami and Hialeah, both in Miami-Dade County, licensed by Florida’s Commission for Independent Education and participating in federal student aid. Federal disputes go to the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division. It delivers instruction in English and Spanish and offers diploma programmes in therapeutic and clinical massage, aesthetic science, dental assisting and pharmacy technician training.

Sort your programme into the right category first

The Institute’s programmes fall into two groups with quite different consequences, and confusing them wastes money. Massage therapy is a licensed profession under chapter 480 and the school holds the only document that opens the licensing examination — highest stakes, tightest timeline. Aesthetic and skin care registrations run through the Board of Cosmetology under chapter 477 and are also clock-hour credentials certified by the school, so the same logic applies at slightly lower stakes. Dental assisting and pharmacy technician work differently. Florida registers pharmacy technicians through the Board of Pharmacy, and the registration route depends on a Board-approved training programme, so completion matters there too — but dental assisting in Florida is largely governed by what a dentist may delegate under chapter 466 rather than by a general assistant licence, with expanded functions requiring specific Board-approved courses. The practical upshot is that a dental assisting dismissal is usually an employability problem rather than a licence problem, and it should be handled proportionately.

Massage therapy licensure runs through a document the school controls

This is the single most important thing for a dismissed massage therapy student to understand, and it is not obvious. Under section 480.033(4), Florida Statutes, a “board-approved massage therapy school” has to satisfy two separate regulators at once: it must meet the Board of Massage Therapy’s curriculum and training standards by rule, and it must be licensed by the Department of Education under chapter 1005. Both, not either.

Then rule 64B7-32.002, Florida Administrative Code, sets out how you prove you finished. You prove it either by appearing on a graduate list the board-approved school submits, or by an official transcript from that school — or, if the school has closed, from the custodian of its records. There is no third route. No portfolio, no affidavit, no accumulation of hours you can document yourself. If the school will not certify graduation, you cannot apply for the licence, and the disqualification is structural rather than disciplinary: nothing in chapter 480 or chapter 64B7 treats a dismissal as misconduct, but nothing in them lets you around the missing transcript either.

That reframes what a dismissal dispute actually is. It is a fight over a record entry that the school issues and the Board requires, which means transcript language, hour totals and completion coding are the substance of the negotiation, not the housekeeping afterwards. It also means a settlement that resolves money but leaves the transcript unchanged has given you very little.

Rule 64B7-32.003 is worth knowing about as well. It lets the Board revoke a school’s approval where the school drops its course of study below minimum standards, fails to require students to complete the course of study before graduating them, or breaches a standard applicable under its Department of Education licence. If the timing goes the wrong way — approval revoked while you are still enrolled — credits earned there may not count toward the Board’s requirements at all, and that is a chapter 1005 problem to raise with the Commission for Independent Education, not a Board problem.

Bilingual delivery and externships create their own disputes

Two issues come up repeatedly at schools that teach in two languages and place students in clinical settings. The first is language of instruction and assessment. Where a programme was advertised as delivered in a particular language and an assessment was conducted in the other, that is a departure from what you enrolled on, and it is a contract question rather than a preference — but it has to be raised at the time, in writing, not for the first time on appeal. The second is externship placement. Dental assisting, pharmacy technician and massage programmes all depend on placements the school arranges at facilities it does not control. If a placement was lost, ask whether the school was obliged to provide one, whether the catalogue promised an alternative if one fell through, and whether the host site’s account of what happened was independently examined or simply adopted. A student removed from a site on an unwritten complaint that nobody investigated is in a much stronger position than they usually assume.

Allied-health certification: the disqualification is structural, not disciplinary

Radiography, respiratory care and the other allied-health credentials work the same way as nursing in one respect and differently in another. The same part is that completion of an approved programme is a statutory precondition, so a dismissal blocks the credential. The different part is that no one treats the dismissal as misconduct.

For radiologic technology, section 468.301(8), Florida Statutes, defines an “educational program” as didactic or clinical training with specified objectives that is subject to departmental approval; section 468.305 puts approval of those programmes with the Department of Health rather than a separate board; and section 468.304 requires each applicant to submit sworn evidence of having completed one. Section 468.3101 lists the disciplinary grounds — criminal convictions related to practice, adverse action by another state or a national certifying organisation — and academic dismissal is not among them. Respiratory care under part V of chapter 468 is built the same way: section 468.351 states the licensing purpose, licensure requires completion of an approved programme plus a recognised national examination, and nothing in the part makes a dismissal an independent disqualifier.

Why that distinction is worth money to you: it means the thing standing between you and the examination is a completion record, and completion records are negotiable in a way that findings of misconduct are not. A withdrawal recoded in place of a dismissal, a readmission with advanced standing, a documented clinical make-up, a transcript that shows the hours you actually did — each of those restores eligibility without anyone having to concede fault. Conversely, if the school reports the exit to a national certifying organisation as a conduct matter, the calculus changes completely, because section 468.3101 does reach adverse action by a national organisation. Establishing early which of the two is happening is the first thing to pin down in writing.

What a Florida court will and will not review

Your relationship with a private licensed school is contractual, not constitutional. Fourteenth Amendment due process constrains state actors, and a private institution is not one, so the argument is built on the enrolment agreement, the catalogue and the handbook rather than on due process. Sharick v. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences, 780 So. 2d 136 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), established both that the relationship is contractual and that damages can reach the lost value of the credential itself, not just tuition paid.

The limit on that is the part students are rarely told. In Tercier v. University of Miami, 383 So. 3d 847 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023) — a nursing dismissal — the Third District confirmed that judicial review of a private institution’s academic determination is confined to whether it was arbitrary and capricious, irrational, made in bad faith, or in violation of the constitution or a statute. Jallali v. Nova Southeastern University, 992 So. 2d 338 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) says the same thing from the other direction: schools get wide latitude to set and apply academic requirements, and the student’s implied duty is to comply with rules the school may lawfully change.

The practical translation is short. “The faculty graded me unfairly” loses. “The school did not do what its own published policy said it would do” is the claim that survives, and it is why the first thing worth doing is reading the catalogue edition that was in force when you enrolled against what actually happened to you. Tercier carries a second lesson too: the court noted that claims not briefed on appeal were treated as abandoned. Arguments have to be raised, and preserved, at each level — including inside the school’s own process.

Which regulator actually holds the leverage here

Two different agencies matter, and students routinely write to the wrong one. Florida’s Commission for Independent Education licenses the institution under chapter 1005, Florida Statutes, and the Commission is where you complain about the school — misrepresentation in recruiting, refusal to release a transcript, a refund the school will not pay, a programme that stopped being delivered as advertised. Rule 6E-1.0032, Florida Administrative Code, requires a licensed institution to maintain and follow a published grievance procedure, and the Commission expects to see that you used it before it will act, so the internal appeal is not a formality you can skip on your way to the regulator.

A professional licensing board — Nursing, Massage Therapy, Psychology, Radiologic Technology, Respiratory Care, whichever governs the credential — is a different body with different powers. It regulates the programme and the licence, not the school’s business conduct, and it will not order a school to readmit you. Sorting out which of the two can give you the thing you actually want is the first useful hour of work in most of these cases, because the wrong filing costs weeks and tells the school you are not being advised.

If the school closes while you are enrolled, section 1005.36 governs the notice it owes and the custody of student records, and section 1005.37 establishes the Student Protection Fund that can reimburse unearned tuition. Those are separate remedies from anything in your student contract and they run on their own deadlines.

A private school, so the statute students rely on does not apply

Most writing about Florida student dismissal assumes a public college, where Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3) supplies notice, a hearing, the right to be accompanied by counsel and a burden that rests on the institution. This is a private institution. None of that section reaches it.

What governs instead is the enrolment agreement, the catalogue and the student and programme handbooks, read as a contract. Sharick v. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences establishes that a Florida student dismissed in breach of the school’s own contractual undertakings has a claim, and that damages can extend to lost future earning capacity rather than a refund of tuition.

Two further things matter at schools of this kind. Many enrolment agreements contain an arbitration clause, and whether it binds a student depends on the version signed, how broadly it is drafted, whether its cost terms are unconscionable and whether the school has waived it — that comes first, because it decides whether there is a courtroom at all. And where a school is licensed by the Florida Commission for Independent Education, the CIE complaint route exists alongside any civil claim and is often the faster pressure point.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

Resolve the arbitration question first, from the agreement the student actually signed.
Assemble the enrolment agreement, catalogue and programme handbook for the correct edition, and pin down the promises about process.
Test the progression arithmetic — withdrawals, repeats and clinical failures are often counted in ways the handbook does not authorise.
Use the Commission for Independent Education complaint route where the school is CIE-licensed, in parallel with the civil claim.
Press on the wording of the decision letter, which follows the student into every future licensure and transfer application.

Trade and vocational school dismissals · Cosmetology and skin care schools · Florida student defence

Other Florida technical and career institutions

Every school writes its own dismissal, appeal and conduct rules, and the filing deadlines are rarely the same from one campus to the next. These pages set out the procedure at other Florida technical and career institutions:

Common questions about Praxis Institute cases

Which of my programmes has the highest stakes?

Massage therapy, by a wide margin. It is licensed under chapter 480 and rule 64B7-32.002 makes the school’s completion document the only route to the examination. Aesthetic and skin care registrations are also clock-hour credentials certified by the school. Dental assisting is usually an employability question rather than a licence question in Florida.

Can I sit for the massage licensing examination without graduating?

No. Proof of graduation from a board-approved school — a graduate list entry or an official transcript from the school or its custodian of records — is the only accepted proof under rule 64B7-32.002. There is no way to document the hours yourself.

I lost my externship placement and was then dismissed. Is that appealable?

Often. Ask whether the school was contractually obliged to provide a placement, whether the catalogue promised an alternative if one fell through, whether the host site’s account was independently examined, and whether the conduct alleged was assessed against a written standard. A removal based on an uninvestigated verbal complaint is a weak basis for a dismissal.

My programme was advertised in Spanish but I was assessed in English. Does that matter?

It can. The advertised language of instruction is part of what you contracted for, so a material departure is a contract question. But it has to be raised contemporaneously and in writing. Raised months later for the first time, it reads as a reaction to the outcome rather than as a genuine complaint.

Does a dismissal count against me with a licensing board?

Not as misconduct. Neither chapter 480 nor the allied-health provisions of chapter 468 treat academic dismissal as a disciplinary ground. The bar is structural — you cannot produce the completion record. That is better news than it sounds, because records are negotiable and findings of misconduct are not.

Which court covers Praxis Institute?

Both campuses are in Miami-Dade County, in the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division. Read your enrolment agreement first, since an arbitration clause may take the dispute out of court entirely.