- January 29, 2026
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Principal Ryan Chase doesn’t mind getting into the weeds.
While walking through the grounds of Sarasota High School, if he sees any plants that don't belong, he'll stop and pull them up himself.
He says he’s not doing it for recognition, but so that others see that no job is too small for anyone.
However, he was recently recognized for something big, when he was announced as the 2026 National Association of Secondary School Principals Florida High School Principal of the Year.
The honor includes the potential to become one of three finalists for National Principal of the Year.
It comes amid Sarasota High School attaining an “A” school grade in 2025, its first since 2019, with 6 out of 10 evaluative categories ranking the highest in the school history.
The school also experienced a 10% increase in its graduation rate over two years, reaching 97%, the highest in its history.
But for Chase, 41, his role is a mission that is deeply personal.
When he was in school, he says he was impacted by teachers who ultimately guided him to become a first-generation college student.
He has spent his career in education, starting out in Manatee County Schools. He came to the Sarasota district in 2013, and has steadily moved up the ranks prior to his current role: assistant principal at Sarasota High, principal at Brookside Middle School.
Each day, Chase wakes up “very, very early,” — 4:45 a.m. — usually checking his email and calendar from home, something he does before bed as well.
“The last thing you want is some emergency or crisis going on with a student or staff member, and then miss it because it's something that I'm kind of always on 24/7 as a principal,” he said.
In the morning, he will greet students outside, and deliver announcements.
“I love being able to get on and talk to the students, and remind them of our expectations and interact with them in that way,” he said.
No day is ever the same.
However, days will involve meeting with staff and students, observing teachers in classrooms and providing coaching, and dealing with disciplinary concerns.
Then there are the small tasks, like the cafeteria duty he elects to perform, which involves carrying out garbage, cleaning and talking to students.
He says it’s a great way to connect with them and ask them how their day is going, and that they are encouraged to clean up their own table spots as a result.
“I don't believe that we have to ask somebody else to do something that we can do, like if I can pick up trash, or if I can pull that weed, or if I can take a student somewhere and walk them to class, or pick up an ID and find where the kid is and bring it to them, I don't need somebody else to do all those things for me,” he said. “I can do those things myself.”
Sarasota High school is not an outlier in its increasing graduation rates.
For the 2024-2025 academic year, the district achieved a graduation rate of 94.3%, a 1.8% increase from last year’s rate, which also broke district records.
Raising that rate involves working with the district staff, who visit each school individually. Chase said starting with a rate below 90% was a challenge, but something he knew could be overcome.
"The one thing when I got here that I thought was most important was to understand that Sarasota High was already a great place," Chase said. “I think what I wanted to really bring to the table here was to build a culture that was focused on taking Sarasota High, though, to the next level, and I wanted Sarasota High to earn its spot in being the No. 1 option for education in this area.”
He says his team focused in on the needs of individual students, whether that was related to GPA, credit deficiency, a need for testing, or not enough attendance, before rallying around that student with services and support.
“The award is really a recognition of our entire campus,” Chase said. “It's not just me, it's our admin team, it's our teachers and our staff. It's our students and our community who support everything that we do here and have believed in me as their principal and allowed our work to excel.”
He attributes the team’s success to factors that include a focus on data, as well as allowing testing and testing prep opportunities for those who need them.
He says at the start of the year, the school had 198 students requiring either an English Language Arts test, or a math test, or both, but by the end of the year, that number was reduced to two.
A third component, he says, is the mentoring aspect, which includes supports like the program No Cap Get Your Cap, which was implemented under his tenure and is now in its third year.
That program was recognized in the 2025 Little Red Schoolhouse Awards, from the Florida Association of School Administrators, for graduating 99% of the students enrolled, students who were not initially on track to graduate.
It is led by Athletic Director and Head Boys Basketball Coach BJ Ivey. “Mr. Chase is remarkable with his understanding of where we sit in terms of graduation rate and what we need to do to make sure that we're helping kids graduate from high school,” Ivey said.
Chase says teachers are also invested in students’ success even outside of formal programs.
Raising the school’s effectiveness was an initiative of working constructively through the school's processes, through a philosophy of “autopsies without blame,” Chase says.
“It's picking it apart for the concept of making it better, not to blame somebody … because when we make something better, we are essentially improving the lives of students, improving the lives of adults,” he said.
In fact, he says as he began in the role, part of the task involved reevaluating his own practices and communicating his expectations more clearly to high-level staff.
“It came from this idea that expectations have to be clear and assumptions can derail a process,” he said. “They can derail a company, a business, a school. They can create frustration and resentment, and if you're willing, as the leader, for me, to just reflect on that and say, ‘What can I do better, rather than what can other people do?' That made all the difference for me.”
Shannon Nelson, instructional facilitator for exceptional student education, thinks the school’s culture has grown “tremendously” under Chase’s leadership.
“He is very academically driven, but also engaged in every aspect of the school, from the sports to the drama, to everything,” she said. “He's involved, and everybody knows he cares.”
Ivey likewise says Chase has “poured” himself into multiple areas, including the department of athletics he oversees, with a positive impact on the school’s culture.
“He attends a lot of events, and then he's passionate when he's there; he's competitive," Ivey said. "Obviously, he wants our teams to do well and gets very, very excited when they do, and definitely pours into the players and the coaches—just makes sure that they feel that they're valued and supported, and what they're doing really matters.”
Nelson said Chase goes “above and beyond for stakeholders; for instance, when five seniors in the cheerleading squad participated in the Macy’s Thankgiving Day Parade last year, Chase showed up to support.
“He took the time out of his day on a Saturday to attend a fundraiser at a Publix that was nowhere near where he lives, just to help their cause,” she said.
Chase says he knew in eighth grade that he would be a teacher, but doesn’t know if he would have expected being principal of Sarasota High School, or principal of the year statewide.
“I don't think I could have written that part of the story,” he said.
However, he’s glad to be writing the history of Sarasota’s namesake school, serving it during its 112th year.
“What I'm proud to say is that we are working every day to prove who we are, to earn who we are,” he said. “We're not sitting back and letting someone define us. We're proud to be Sarasota High.”
