Jamie is the founder and CEO of Learning Courage. His experience includes nearly two decades in the private sector in both finance and marketing roles, where he honed his business acumen, strategic thinking and creative approach. Jamie has also consulted with, helped start, and been involved in board leadership of a variety of nonprofit organizations.
His work with schools began when, in 2016, he shared the story of being sexually abused in 9th grade at Milton Academy. During the school’s 9-month investigation, he observed first-hand how important and yet challenging it can be for both survivors and school leaders to rebuild trust and support healing.
Learning Courage came out of his observation that schools needed guidance keeping survivors at the center of incidents of sexual abuse and misconduct. Central to his findings in this work is that being survivor-centered is in the best interests of not just survivors but also the institutions where the abuse occurred. The best way to improve the sector's response to sexual abuse, he reasoned, was to create an organization that collected and shared what they learned.
Jamie graduated from Connecticut College and lives in Portsmouth, NH with his wife, two daughters and a dog that thinks he’s actually human.
Amy Wheeler is a co-founder of Learning Courage and a survivor of sexual abuse. She is also a wise and compassionate independent school educator and administrator with over 30 years of practical, front-line school experience. She knows well the impact of sexual misconduct on students, faculty, staff, and institutions, and the importance of proactive educational training and prevention. Her lived and professional experiences make her uniquely qualified to help schools navigate the complex issues facing independent schools today.
A graduate of Connecticut College, Amy began her career as a “triple-threat” English teacher, dorm parent and coach at Lawrence Academy while raising a family of her own; so she understands well the challenging and very full life led by boarding school faculty and staff.
Amy earned an M.Ed. from Boston College in Educational Leadership and worked for eleven years at The Sage School, a k-8 school for academically gifted students. There she served as Director of Admission and Secondary School Placement, Assistant Head, and interim Head. Simultaneously, she helped to establish the Tremont School as a founding board member. Amy also spent seven years as Upper School Director at Beaver Country Day, followed by three years as Associate Head at The Ethel Walker School, a 6-12 all-girls boarding school in CT.
Amy currently serves on the Board at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, where she is a member of the DEI and Governance Committees. She lives in Westport, MA with her partner, Tim.
An independent school educator and administrator for the past ten years, Jayde began their career as an Associate Director of Admission, soccer, basketball and lacrosse coach at their alma mater, Kent School. With administrative experience at both day and boarding independent schools, Jayde fully understands what it means to be an educator in these spaces and the heart work that is done daily. Most recently, Jayde served as the Director of Residential Life and Associate Dean of students at The Masters School. In their time as an independent school student, educator and administrator, Jayde has found numerous ways to support students of marginalized backgrounds as they enter key phases of their identity development.
Jayde is excited to be a support and thought-partner for member schools as they develop an ethic of care that centers healing and survivorship and that is responsive to community needs.
Originally from Boston, MA, they hold a BA in Sociology and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies from Colby College and an MA in Higher and Postsecondary Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Amy Wheeler joined Learning Courage in the fall of 2019. A survivor herself, Amy has been an independent school educator and administrator for over 30 years. She began her career as an English teacher, dorm parent and coach at Lawrence Academy and understands the full life boarding school faculty and staff lead. Since then, she has worked as an administrator in K-8 day schools, 6-12 day schools, and a 6-12 all girls boarding school and knows well the impact of sexual misconduct on students, faculty, staff and institutions and the importance of training and prevention. Her experience on a number of independent school boards also gives her insight into the larger institutional issues that arise from both historic and current sexual misconduct on independent school campuses. We welcome her expertise on our team.
Kate brings over twenty five years of IT experience focused on the financial services, manufacturing and med-tech sectors. Her expertise includes business planning, account management, program/project management and client service. She specializes in transforming and integrating complex voice and data infrastructure for acquisitions.
Kate brings a calm demeanor, attention to detail and natural ability to create process in her work.
David began working with Learning Courage in early 2020 but took on a larger role in early 2023 to assist the organization with financial and operational matters. David was a CPA for many years after graduating from Babson College, working for Deloitte & Touche and a small local CPA firm in central Pennsylvania. From there David then spent 13 years at a start-up concierge and lifestyle management company, where he worked his way up to Controller and Vice President of Finance, and ultimately helped lead the team that successfully sold the company to a large corporate conglomerate. For the last 10+ years he has taken all that he learned as a CPA and helping a start-up business grow to acquisition to now consulting with small businesses and nonprofits, helping with all things financial and operational, specifically providing a great breadth of knowledge in the areas of accounting, budgeting and forecasting, insurance, payroll, human resources, benefits, work flow processes and leading edge systems.
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
info@learningcourage.org
Learning Courage membership gives your school timely, relevant and vital information about how to reduce sexual misconduct and respond appropriately to incidents when they do occur.
