Academics
- In This Section
Making a Successful Start to the Teen Years: The SNACS Charter Middle School Experience
SNACS serves middle school students in grades 6–8 from Reno and the surrounding community. Our tuition-free public charter school combines challenging academics with hands-on projects, personalized support, leadership development, arts, STEM, and meaningful community connections.
Middle School is the beginning of so much transformative growth and development. Students step up to new responsibilities and freedoms. Their minds expand and their bodies grow. Middle School education sets the stage for High School and plants seeds for future college searches and careers—and it is so important to get it right.
Unlike other charter middle schools, SNACS creates a different kind of classroom, filled with personalized, hands-on, and self-directed learning opportunities that keep middle school students actively engaged.
Middle School Curriculum
Arriving at the midpoint in K-12 curriculum means striking a balance between independence and instruction. The SNACS innovative PLAY Model (Promoting Learning and Accountability in Youth) does exactly that, exceeding Nevada state standards to set a whole new bar.
Through a mix of challenging classes and student-directed pathway projects, SNACS students practice:
Strong STEM Skills
Through highly interactive individual and team puzzles and projects utilizing hands-on tools and the latest technology, our students learn to develop the spirit of scientific inquiry, more mathematical minds, and see themselves as stewards of the natural world.
Reading, Writing, and Critical Thinking
Moving between fiction and nonfiction—and between literature and their own creative writing journals and published books—Middle School learners expand their vocabulary, hone their grammar, and learn to see and understand the power of words to share information, persuade others, and express themselves. (They even meet and work with professional authors and launch their own published books at Barnes and Noble Author’s Debut!)
History, Culture, and the Wider World
Middle schoolers are naturally curious about the wider world and their place within it. SNACS classes and pathway projects encourage them to draw connections between historical and current events and between other cultures and their own.
Time Management and Study Skills
Because SNACS prioritizes self-directed learning for our Middle Schoolers, they take ownership of their education at an earlier age and develop practical time management strategies and effective study skills for Middle School. Pathway projects, in particular, let students workshop their time management and achieve greater accountability.
The Arts, Performance, and Creative Self-Expression
SNACS centers the arts in our innovative academic curriculum, encouraging students to incorporate visual and performing arts into their learning process. We also provide ample opportunities for students to learn musical instruments, explore painting, sculpture, and ceramics, and participate in theatrical performances.
The SNACS approach works wonders for many different kinds of learners.
Middle School Life
Beyond the Classroom
To learn more effectively, Middle School students need to move around and make things. That’s why SNACS sends them out of the classroom and into dynamic real-world settings on regular Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound days, Farm days. Field days, Family breakfasts, Invention Conventions, Math Nights, and Scientific Inquiry Days. Every opportunity to get outside the classroom opens new doors and windows in children’s minds.
Academic Supports
From extensive speech services to one-on-one tutoring to counseling appointments and health seminars, SNACS ensures the mental and physical wellbeing of our students and helps every child thrive.
A Sense of Service and Purpose
SNACSgiving, the centerpiece of our community service initiatives in Middle School, enlists everyone in a hands-on and heartwarming effort to make a difference by supporting local shelters.