A wealth of opportunities through the ship already existed; this was an opportunity to really expand and grow.”

Capt. Jonathan Kabak, CEO of Oliver Perry Hazard RI

PORTSMOUTH — By this time next year, the town hopes to have a group of local students working toward improving their reading, math scores and school attendance — all while aboard a 200-foot tall ship.

Gov. Daniel McKee visited town and school officials at Town Hall last Thursday for a joint signing of the Learn365RI Municipal Compact to provide out-of-school learning opportunities for students. The program is aimed at increasing educational opportunities by 1 million total hours in addition to the 180-day school year. Its success will be gauged by district test scores, attendance rates and FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) completion rates.

“You’re one of 31 compacts that have been signed,” said McKee, who joined Town Council President Kevin Aguiar in putting his signature to the agreement. “For me, it’s 93 percent of the state’s population.”

The program is aimed particularly at those students who have fallen behind due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced schools to temporarily shutter their doors and offer online learning that was challenging for many pupils. “There’s a learning recovery, there’s a mental health recovery,” the governor said, adding that the goal is to “reach Massachusetts’ levels by 2030.”

A total of $4 million in grant money is available to Rhode Island communities to implement their own plan for out-of-school learning. The funding, provided through the federal Governor’s Emergency Education Relief fund, will be awarded by the R.I. Department of Education to municipalities in grants ranging between $50,000 and $400,000.

“I’m really looking forward to see what every community will do,” said McKee, noting that some municipalities, such as Lincoln, are opening new learning centers. “Everybody’s going to have a different version of how they are going to provide the extra time.”

Onboard classroom

Portsmouth came up with something truly outside the box: Having local students serve as shipmates aboard the tall ship Oliver Hazard Perry, owned by the nonprofit Oliver Hazard Perry Rhode Island (OHPRI), founded 21 years ago. 

“We like to say that we train for the sea,” said Capt. Jonathan Kabak, the nonprofit’s CEO. “We do everything from K-through-12 STEAM education, to workforce development and training. We run a program in partnership with CCRI, funded by DLT (R.I. Department of Labor and Training) that trains people to enter the maritime industry and marine trades. We do marine science, we do career awareness, so it’s really a gamut of programming all predicated on building relationships for Rhode Islanders with the ocean and sea.” 

Superintendent Thomas Kenworthy said the schools had already done some work with OHPRI “here and there with individual students on some great programs. It was one of the first things that came to mind for me.”

Added Kabak, “We’ve had an ongoing dialogue with the Town of Portsmouth based on some initial programs on everything from recovery, where we helped students at the high school remediate coarse work they were challenged by during Covid, to after-school enrichment programs. A wealth of opportunities through the ship already existed; this was an opportunity to really expand and grow.”

Town, schools partners

Town Administrator Richard Rainer, Jr. is the lead facilitator for the town on the Learn365RI project because it’s designed to be a municipal program, with the grant money flowing to cities and town government rather than school districts. Still, he said he wouldn’t do anything without school administration being on board. After Kenworthy suggested a partnership with OHPRI, “we just ran with it,” he said.

“We think we’ve put together something really exciting,” said Rainer, who believes the town’s grant application is a strong one. “I think we’re going to get probably not as much as we wanted, but more than the minimum. There are going to be a lot of kids who are going to have a really good time next year.”

When a student hears “Learn365,” they may equate that with going to school every day, Rainer said.

“Nobody would be interested in that. But we can say, ‘We’re going to be offering you educational opportunities that are exciting and fun, and you’re going to learn something on a real tall ship.’ We’re pretty jazzed about it,” he said.

Perhaps no one is “jazzed” about the program more than Rainer, a retired U.S. Navy captain and former director of the Navy staff college at the War College in Newport.

“I think I learned more in my first five years in the Navy than I did in all 12 years of primary school, only because everything I did, from navigation to engineering to combat systems to operations — everything — depended on my ability to write, my ability to communicate, my ability to do math, my ability to reason, my ability to make decisions. Obviously, that was taught in schools, but not in an environment where you’re out at sea, you’re with people, and you’re doing something that’s fun,” he said.

While the town hopes to open the program to all students, that will really depend on how much funding Portsmouth receives through the grant application. “In our grant, we have a scaled-down version, where we’ll have to select a few people, to the maximum they give us, when we can open the gates,” Rainer said.

Making connections

To Kabak and others at OHPRI, Rhode Island’s greatest assets are the ocean and its people, and through “growth and learning,” Learn365 presents an opportunity to connect them.

“The idea is to take the youth and community that live on this part of the island … and really show them that the ocean and the bay that surrounds them is this amazing resource,” he said.