Sarah Schnauder is redefining how Baton Rouge kids learn

Sarah Schnauder makes learning fun for hundreds of summer campers, preschoolers and elementary schoolers in Baton Rouge.

In 2015, Schnauder founded Kid Possible summer camps at Jefferson United Methodist Church. She had noticed a gap in Baton Rouge’s summer program options and decided to fill it by creating a program that had it all: accessibility, fun and learning. What started as a camp for 12 children per week has turned into a program spanning three locations that hosted over 1,400 kids this summer.

Kid Possible provided Schnauder with many opportunities, including becoming director of the preschool at Jefferson United Methodist Church. What she did not expect, however, was requests from parents to open her own school. She turned down the idea for many years until a former school principal approached her with a framework that aligned perfectly with Schnauder’s philosophy.

“We were not building a school that was exclusive. We were not building a school for only one type of student.” Schnauder says.

The Link School, a small private elementary school on a property behind Broadmoor United Methodist Church, was the result of the women’s brainstorming. The school opened in 2023 and surpassed the founders’ expectations in its first year. Schnauder says she was proud that half of the students enrolled qualified for free school lunches, and more than 40 percent qualified for IEP services.

The Link School’s success inspired Schnauder to begin her next project, Harvest Commons, a charter school for kids in kindergarten through fifth grade opening this fall at the downtown site of the former South Boulevard Elementary School.

The Kid Possible camps also laid the groundwork for Harvest Commons. The camps use a social-emotional learning model. In this model, learning is centered around the core concepts of respect, kindness and empathy.

Harvest Commons’ environment will be similar to Kid Possible camps, with a few key differences. The new school’s main feature is a hands-on learning farm entirely operated by classes. Children will learn by doing—growing, harvesting and selling produce from the farm.

In all her endeavors, Schnauder’s goal is to help children succeed. She explains what a successful student looks like at Harvest Commons: “Someone empathetic, someone who is a high performer in the classroom,” she says. “They know how to ask for what they need. They can self-advocate. And those are all really important skills that, as they head into middle school, they can spread across the city.”

This article was originally published in the August 2026 issue of 225 Magazine.