Pride of the Fleet
Rewarding MCAS Excellence

Sponsored by Fleet Boston Financial Foundation, the Pride of the Fleet campaign is a $7,500 grant initiative designed to inspire academic excellence and reward improvements in MCAS scores in inner-city schoolchildren. During the 2002-03 school year, Greater Boston schools’ academic performances were evaluated and ranked by a complex rubric that weighed factors such as each community’s education allowance per student and MCAS test score improvement. Three Boston schools, The Harbor School, Clarence Edwards Middle School and Grover Cleveland Middle School, were recipients of the Pride of the Fleet Award during this program’s maiden year. Thanks to the partnership between Battleship Cove and Fleet Boston, the entire sixth-grade class of each school, a total of 517 Pride of the Fleet scholars and their teachers, will be receiving: the Battleship Cove Curriculum & Pre-Visit Guide and Big Mamie video, a transportation stipend, all-day admission to Battleship Cove, hands-on workshops, and a Battleship Cove Souvenir Guides.

To reinforce these relationships and measure the quality of each group’s visit, students will return to their classrooms to write press releases about their visits to Battleship Cove. Supportive curriculum materials, designed by the Education and Public Relations Departments, will be provide instructions on how to write a press release and which sorts of information should be included. Completed Pride of the Fleet press releases will then be reviewed by the museum’s education and public relations directors and evaluated for content, style, and mechanics before their release to the media by the schools.

Battleship Cove is proud to present three Pride of the Fleet awards this school year and provide Boston students with experiences in primary source and real-world application education. We look forward to hosting the students and engaging them through history and science throughout the spring. If you or your company would like to learn how to sponsor Pride of the Fleet in your region, please contact Battleship Cove.