Fabs Grooves On Expanded Role, New School Direction

Former Mayor John Fabrizi, a career educator outside of his nearly five years as the city’s chief executive, is full of optimism about the future of city schools, particularly the new direction under school chief Paul Vallas. The director of Adult Education and High School Transformation, Fabs recently kicked out a couple of surveys, to the business community and area universities, regarding school partnerships. The survey to members of the Bridgeport Regional Business Council centers on the availability of unpaid internships for school students. The survey to roughly 12 Connecticut colleges inquires about a variety of partnerships including paid and unpaid internships.

At Vallas’ request Fabrizi has taken on an expanded role as director of High School Transformation without additional compensation. See his letter below to regional businesses followed by the survey:

Dear Business Owner:

Greetings! On behalf of Paul Vallas, Superintendent of the Bridgeport Public Schools, we would like to gather your input on an exciting initiative that is a critical component of the Superintendent’s transformation plan for the Bridgeport Public Schools. Superintendent Vallas has requested the help and support of the Bridgeport Regional Business Council in this collaborative initiative. As you are aware, too many students leave high school under-prepared for the world of work, and lacking the knowledge and skills that businesses like yours need to be successful in the twenty-first century. We intend to reverse this trend.

To this end, we would like to ask you to complete the enclosed survey, so that we can determine the feasibility of providing our students with opportunities to engage in unpaid internships to gain real-world knowledge about the world of work in general, and about your business in particular. By integrating hands-on experiences through applied learning, our students can graduate from high school prepared for success in post-secondary education and the world of work in the twenty-first century. We hope to engage you, as a member of the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, in the broader role of providing all of our students with meaningful opportunities to learn and contribute in our community.

Please take a few moments to complete our survey by clicking on the following so that we can tailor our program to meet your needs.

Once we have reviewed your responses, we will be in direct contact so that we can discuss all of the specific details about this partnership opportunity with you. As we are eager to collaborate with your business in this endeavor, kindly respond to the survey by May 1, 2012.

We understand that you may have questions and concerns specific to your work environment that we will directly address with you on an individual basis.

Business community survey here.