When Roberto Hilarion and his sister were younger, their parents moved from Cuba to Miami in hopes of building a better life for their children.

Marcus Moore, who rose above poverty as a child to follow his mother’s footsteps into educating the next generation, looked out at the crowd of soon-to-be graduates, eyes expectant and surrounded by beaming family and friends.

Ja’Lissa Leggett had always been a good student. But in a traditional high school, with its crowded classrooms and busy teachers, she fretted about requesting the help she needed.

From the time he was young, Christian Johnson has been a gifted trumpet player. That spark grew into a flame when he was in fourth grade and got invited backstage to meet legendary trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.

With proud family members and dedicated educators cheering them on, the latest class of graduates from Sarasota Acceleration Academies celebrated their high school diplomas and the futures they have just made that much brighter.

For Summer Worthington, high school was hard enough. The crowded classrooms and lack of hands-on help combined with turmoil in her personal life to make her decide to drop out.

After facing bullying in elementary and middle school, Anaya Garnes decided she was going to map her own way through high school. During the Covid pandemic, she shifted to an online program but found that working alone too often meant feeling abandoned by her teachers.

It wasn’t so long ago that Bo Falcon felt lost, struggling with mental health issues, abusing drugs and straining to put one step in front of the other. As for high school, Bo says, “I was actively not doing any work at my old school, not caring.”

The new director of Escambia County Acceleration Academies is a career educator. But that doesn’t mean he’s always been keen on education.