PROUD Academy, set to open in September, will be CT’s first school for LGBTQ youth
Early in her teaching career, Patricia Nicolari was harassed by her students, who assumed she was a lesbian. Some sneered “I have a dyke for a teacher.” A vandal scratched “lez” in big letters on her car.
Then in 1997, she came out of the closet. It changed everything. “I allowed myself to no longer be the victim,” Nicolari said. “When students harassed me, now I could address it.” When someone graffiti’d a slur against her on a restroom wall, instead of staying silent, she chided them for spelling “dyke” incorrectly.
“I finally felt I was in control,” she said.
Nicolari wants LGBTQ students to feel the same freedom she felt. “Youths are not whole if all the time they are not allowed to be themselves,” she said. “So many kids don’t feel safe at school. They feel alone and isolated because no one understands them.”
Nicolari is the founder and executive director of PROUD Academy, a small private school that aims to open in September in New Haven. When it opens, PROUD will be the first school in Connecticut developed specifically for LGBTQ youths, and for youths whose families have LGBTQ members.
“We set up booths at Pride events in Westport, Darien, New Haven, and surveyed youths. Their priorities were they wanted an inclusive curriculum and teachers who ‘get’ them,” Nicolari said. “They don’t want to have to explain why they dress the way they do, why they use the pronouns they do, why they have two moms.”
Heterosexual students from traditional families are welcome at PROUD, too, if they prefer a more queer-inclusive environment than they experience at their current school.
Four other schools — in New York, Wisconsin, Ohio and Alabama — have opened to embrace youths in the LGBTQ community.
An event on Thursday night at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven introduced PROUD Academy to interested families. The event was held in conjunction with School Choice Week.
Unsafe in school
Nicolari said at those Pride events, 95% of surveyed students responded that they don’t feel safe in their schools. Testimony from kids who came to the event, who are all considering enrolling at PROUD, illustrated that fear.
Tarin Degnan, who called himself a “transguy,” addressed the crowd about his experiences as the first person to openly transition at his school. It started on the day he came out to his classmates.
“One kid immediately went, ‘I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.’ That was just detrimental,” said Degnan, who lives in Killingworth. “That goes with being ignored, or deadnamed or misgendered. ... The idea of not being able to pass or be accepted as a preferred gender can make such a large impact on people. It can lead to the simplest life tasks being difficult.”
Later, some students took pictures of him in the hallway. Other classmates were more threatening.
“I was chased down the hall by two boys who tried to follow me into the bathroom. They didn’t realize that I had ducked into the women’s, not the men’s,” he said. “I could hear them through the wall, opening stall doors, asking each other ‘where did that freak go?’”
Adrian Kratzsch, 13, of Farmington came to the event with his mother. Kratzsch came out two years ago.
“I’ve experienced a lot of hatred towards being LGBTQ. The school talks a lot about diversity but they don’t do anything to stop the bullying,” he said. “I wish I was more accepted, but I’ve come pretty far being who I am.”
Beau Berube of Newington, also 13, identifies as nonbinary and transmasculine. He was outed in 2021 by someone he considered a friend and has been homeschooled ever since. “I don’t get bullied like I would if I was at a normal school,” he said.
His mother, Amy Berube, has been homeschooling her son. But he wants to go a school for eighth grade. She considered sending him back to public school but has hesitated so far. “The thought of going in and making arguments about where he can go to the bathroom, and about the gym, I wasn’t up to that yet,” she said.
Life-changing
Brandon Iovene, a member of the PROUD board of directors, understands the kids’ experiences. Iovene, 23, is a graduate of Haddam-Killingworth High School. He got a bachelor’s degree at SCSU and is currently pursuing his master’s degree there.
“I had a really challenging experience in school, with bullying and harassment,” Iovene said. “Then I enrolled in SCSU and I felt I could be my authentic self. I felt I had the capacity to do good. This is what I wanted my whole life.”
He called PROUD Academy “a solution to a life-or-death situation.
“For queer youth, that is the reality. Bullying and harassment destroys you both educationally and socially. Not giving kids a safe and affirming environment is not doing anyone any favors. As a kid, a school like this would be absolutely life-changing.”
Connecticut State Treasurer Erick Russell, the first openly gay Black person elected to a statewide office in the country, addressed the crowd and expressed agreement with Iovene’s sentiments.
“Being yourself is a remarkable thing. It sounds so easy, but it never is, especially for young people, and especially for members of the LGBTQ community,” he said. “Every kid deserves to feel accepted, safe and totally themselves. Without structures in place to provide those supports, the consequences can be tragic.”
“Each kid that is let down, abandoned or falls through the cracks of the systems built to protect them makes everything we do more fragile and unreliable,” Russell said.
According to a 2022 annual poll by The Trevor Project, 42% of LGBT youth, and 53% of trans and nonbinary youth in Connecticut have seriously considered suicide and 11% have made an attempt.
Organizers and supporters
PROUD, which stands for Proudly Respecting Our Unique Differences, aims to open this fall with 125 students in grades seven to 10. The school will serve kids through 12th grade.
Nicolari, who holds four degrees from SCSU, has worked as a teacher, school administrator, director of a mentoring program for justice- and DCF-involved youth, has been a foster parent and has served on the Governor’s Prevention Partnership LGBTQ+ Advisory Board.
The school’s board of directors includes LGBTQ activists, professionals with teaching, school administration, social work, psychology and grant-writing expertise, and John Rose, the first lawyer of color to have worked in a large law firm. Nearly half are people of color.
Nicolari has a site in mind for the school, she said, and has had interest from parents throughout the state and out of state. She also has received many job applications from teachers. She is developing the school’s curriculum in partnership with Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network and a number of experts.
The co-founder of The Trevor Project, Celeste Lecesne, attended the New Haven event. Lecesne — who also founded The Future Perfect Project, an arts initiative focusing on LGBTQ kids — will be a consultant with PROUD Academy on arts curriculum.
“We want to amplify the voices and the self-expression of queer young people. It’s a declaration of a perfect future for everybody,” Lecesne said. “If they do well, we all do well.”
Lecesne, 69, said he is inspired by the self-confidence of the current generation of LGBTQ youths.
“This generation has a social-justice component that I’ve never seen before, that connects them to one another. They are emboldened to be themselves,” Lecesne said.
SCSU also will consult with PROUD Academy, offering help with curriculum development and mentorship. CCSU President Joe Bertolino, who also is openly gay, said he understands the discrimination.
“When I began my career, I was told to stay closeted. I was told there was a gay glass ceiling,” he said. “At first, I believed that.”
In addition to education, the school will have a strong mental-health support component.
PROUD Academy enrollment forms are at form.jotform.com/223175419183154. To donate to PROUD Academy, visit proudacademyct.org/donate. The school’s website is proudacademyct.org.
Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.
