NEW HAVEN, Conn. — “Sometimes we want to create what we didn’t have. And so that’s what I’m doing,” said Patrica, “Patty” Nicolari.
Nicolari spent years inside the Ansonia school district as an educator and school principal. Beyond her passion for education is the desire to provide a safe space. It’s personal.
“As a teacher in the 80s as an “in” teacher, meaning not out about my sexual orientation, I knew how uncomfortable it felt for 15 years to have to pretend to be somebody else. Being called less and we have a dyke for a teacher and scratching in my car created a very unsafe space. So that began the process of me thinking, if I’m not feeling safe as the adult, I can’t imagine how my students feel,” said Nicolari.
From here blossomed the PROUD Academy, the first private school in the northeast designed for LGBTQ+ students.
For Nicolari, it is a dream 15 years in the making.