By Owen Dorell, June 3, 2018<\/p>\n
The senior class from the Florida\u00a0high school where 17 people died in a mass shooting in February\u00a0honored four members slain in the attack at\u00a0Sunday’s graduation\u00a0while others planned the next phase of their campaign to stop gun violence.<\/p>\n
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High presented\u00a0diplomas to the families of Nicholas Dworet, Joaquin Oliver, Meadow Pollack and Carmen Schentrup.<\/p>\n
The students also heard from surprise commencement speaker Jimmy Fallon, who urged graduates to move forward and \u201cdon\u2019t let anything stop you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cTonight Show\u201d host praised the students, saying, \u201cYou are not just the future \u2013 you are the present. Keep changing the world. Keep making us proud.\u201d\u00a0He also thanked them for their bravery and activism.<\/p>\n
Student leaders from March for Our Lives, which grew out of the Parkland massacre,\u00a0announced they will hold a press conference Monday on\u00a0the next steps in their push for more stringent national gun-control legislation.<\/p>\n
The students will\u00a0harness\u00a0“the enormous energy and passion against gun violence displayed by the millions of people at the 800 March For Our Lives events across the country on March 24 and turning it into action,” according to a statement.<\/p>\n
The ceremony for the 784 members of the Class of 2018 was\u00a0held at the BB&T Center, where the National Hockey League\u2019s Florida Panthers play. It was moved to the arena to accommodate the expected large crowd.<\/p>\n
Teacher Darren Levine told CNN the mood was somber.<\/p>\n
“There’s definitely a solemn feel mixed with joy, which is weird,” Levine said.<\/p>\n
The Broward School District kept the event private. Only invited guests will be admitted and the media have\u00a0been barred from inside the arena.<\/p>\n
“Requests from victims\u2019 families, survivors, students and loved ones convey an unmistakable desire by some for privacy on this day,” the school district said on its website. “We believe honoring their requests is the right thing to do.”<\/p>\n
Fourteen students and three staff members died in the Feb. 14 attack. A former Stoneman Douglas student, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, is charged with their deaths and the wounding of 17. His attorneys have said he will plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life without parole. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.<\/p>\n
Oliver’s parents, Manuel and Patricia, told ABC’s Nightline<\/em>\u00a0that they will go to Sunday’s commencement ceremony with their daughter, Andrea. They said they never imagined they would see their 17-year-old son’s classmates graduating without him.<\/p>\n “We had a lot of plans for our lives,” Manuel Oliver said\u00a0in an interview on Friday. “These kind of events destroy any plan that you had and leave you in an empty space with no plan at all.”<\/p>\n