Sarasota High graduates sail into the future

As the sun set over the Charlie Cleland Stadium at Ihrig Field, 464 Sarasota High School graduates filed in, girls on one side, boys on the other.

They met in the middle of the stadium, waving and smiling at friends and families who wielded brightly colored signs and balloons. 

After singing the national anthem and the school's alma mater, students reflected on their four years at the school. 

The school speaker Jasmine McCobb-Pratt focused her speech on momentous school occasions from the past four years such as the opening of various new buildings, school spirit days and February 14, 2018 — the day of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. 

It was that day, McCobb-Pratt said, that made Sarasota High students scared to go to school. But, rather than sit in fear, McCobb-Pratt said students banded together to demand School Avenue be shut down, something the city is now considering. 

"We are a generation ready to be written about in textbooks," she said. "We are ready to fight for what we believe in." 

McCobb-Pratt encouraged her fellow graduates to take the lessons learned from their experiences at Sarasota High into their future endeavors.