​WHY DO I TEACH?

I began my teaching career with little forethought.  I'd graduated from UC Irvine and a friend let me know they needed substitute teachers with the Orange County Juvenile Court schools.  I signed on, but continued to earn most of my income working at the 7-11 in South Laguna Beach.

​With the exception of two years in which I served as the coordinator for special education services at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, I've mostly worked with students with emotional or behavioral challenges.  I've experienced firsthand how behaviors improve when learning improves.  Providing challenging instruction, with all necessary supports, accommodations and modifications, is not only good for kids, it's good for our communities.  I'm excited about the increased access to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Math) for all students.

I took an interest in the law as a result of what I saw in schools, both special and general education matters.  I earned a JD from Concord Law School and for several years I helped individuals and businesses going through financial distress through my solo bankruptcy practice.  Most recently, I served as a public defender in Missouri where I worked with indigent clients facing serious charges, including juvenile offenders.  As in teaching at public schools, I considered a large part of my law practice to be nurturing a vision for a better future, helping determine a path forward, and helping my clients get started on their path -- building hope.  As a public defender, in addition to challenging the prosecution's evidence, I zealously advocated for my clients with the prosecutor and before the Court.

Every child deserves a teacher who believes in the intrinsic value of all persons and who can help them find their place as a contributing member of a kind and supportive community.  I've worked at many schools and for leaders with a wide range of priorities.  Every family and every teacher deserves a school leader with the courage and conviction to not give up when the going gets rough.  Our children, and our nation, depend on our commitment to each other no matter our differences,  

Link Schrader (August 2022)

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the  arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."  Theodore Roosevelt