THE final class to this Florida High School will make you do a double – and triple – take.
Fourteen sets of twins and a set of graduating tripletsted on June 5 from Cooper City High School in Cooper City, Florida, about 40 minutes from Miami.
The group represented about 6% of the 543 graduates.
“It was very special because they were walking across the stage; I would shake their hands and give a diploma to one, then the second would come and do the same thing,” Vera Perkovic, the school’s principal, told TODAY.com.
“It kind of symbolizes that they are their own person, but also that they were together all these years as twins,” she adds.
Cooper City High School Principal Vera Perkovic referenced the class’s twins and triplets during her graduation speech. Courtesy of Broward County Public Schools.
Among the graduates are two pairs of identical twins and 12 pairs of fraternal twins, NBC 6, our South Florida station, reported.
Gabrielle and Jocelyn Reed are one of these identical twins.
“It was a great moment. It was also just weird because you’re raising twins and everything is two at once,” Gabrielle and Jocelyn’s father, Aaron Reed, told TODAY.com. “So on some levels it was twice as exciting, but it was also twice as chaotic and overwhelming.”
The sisters have been going to school together since kindergarten. Next August, they will go their separate ways for college.
Gabrielle is headed to Cornell University, while Jocelyn will attend Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
“I’m just really excited to go somewhere separate and be alone,” Gabrielle says. “Everywhere I go I’m grouped with her and I’m not really seen as my own person, so I’m really excited to be able to have my own experiences.”
As the editor of the Cooper City High School yearbook, Jocelyn was always aware of the number of twins in her class, but it wasn’t until the group got together in a room that she realized how special it was to have so many twins.
“When you’re a twin, people treat you like a spectacle,” Jocelyn said. “So it was crazy to see that it’s so common and there are so many people who are also twins.”
The Cooper City High School Class of 2024 graduated June 5 from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Vera Perkovic / Courtesy Broward County Public Schools
Broward County Public Schools estimates the graduates set a county record as most sets of twins graduate from one school simultaneously.
Some students even created a slogan to commemorate their unique graduating class: “Twice as nice and three times as fun.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
