SUNRISE, Fla._"Remember those not with us, and celebrate all the successes the Class of 2018 has brought to the community and the world!"
Those words, in a Twitter post Sunday by Ty Thompson, principal of Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, seemed to capture the bittersweet tenor, the joy but also the pain, of Sunday afternoon's Class of 2018 graduation ceremony.
The commencement marked the end of a school year beset by the horror of the Feb. 14 mass shooting and the grief that continues to overwhelm the community, but also the sense of pride in the school community's response, most acutely seen with the student-led demands for gun control that grew into a national movement and calls by students and parents to improve school safety.
Sunday's graduation ceremony was at the BB&T Center in Sunrise. As attendees left their cars and climbed the stairs into the arena, gunfire from the shooting range at nearby Markham Park could be heard.
In a public statement issued on Friday, Broward County Public Schools acknowledged the news media's interest in covering the event, but said it would be respecting some of the families' calls for privacy, saying that if anybody in attendance wanted to make a statement, they could approach a designated media area outside the arena.
"As you are aware, these students and families have been through and continue to deal with an unspeakable tragedy that has impacted them directly and profoundly," the statement said.
Students, parents, teachers, and members of the Stoneman Douglas and Parkland communities posted photos and their thoughts before the ceremony.
April Schentrup, whose daughter Carmen Schentrup was among the 17 killed in the shooting, posted a photo of Carmen wearing her graduation gown and cap.
"For me, it is too painful to celebrate w/o Carmen," she wrote. "But I am proud of Carmen's friends & classmates on their accomplishments. They've overcome so much. I know they will (continue) to make positive changes."
