Academics
The Academic Model that Sets SNACS Apart:
PLAY® (Promoting Learning and Accountability in Youth)
SNACS, Nevada’s first K-8 community public charter school, now Prek-8, was founded on the simple, powerful insight that students of all ages learn best when they can do what they love. PLAY®: Promoting Learning and Accountability in Young children/Youth takes personalized expeditionary learning (EL education) to a whole new level—and changes students’ lives.
Unlike other school models, the PLAY® EL education model does not ask students to conform to an educational vision. PLAY® asks them to create their own and helps them achieve their goals.
Our groundbreaking charter academy curriculum is filled with choices—innovative and engaging ways for students to discover new passions, acquire critical skills and find their own way forward to a more successful future.
Each semester, students choose a new and challenging project covering many different disciplines and our dedicated faculty and staff support them along the way.
Making Choices
SNACS PLAY®-based expeditionary learning pathways change throughout the year to reflect our students’ individual interests and initiatives. Students shape their own unique educational experiences through these hands-on expeditionary education opportunities with exciting real-world applications. Students use the first-ever PLAY® Interactive Choice Board to make decisions about which projects and activities they work on within the classroom. This builds metacognition, executive functioning, self-regulation, agency, and hope increasing student engagement and achievement.
Creating and publishing a graphic novel. Creating a robot. Coding a game. Starting a business or developing and testing an investment strategy. Writing, rehearsing and filming a news program or television show. Each PLAY® EL education path is interactive, multidisciplinary, multimedia, and customized to challenge and inspire each child.
Taking Responsibility
A strong academic foundation. Critical thinking skills. Personal responsibility and executive functioning. Creative expression. Rich values, deep friendships, and promising futures. It’s all possible with PLAY®. Students learn self-regulation and agency skills that help them in school and the real world.
Building Community
The PLAY® model of expeditionary education works so well because an entire charter academy community comes together to support our students. PLAY® is a parent involvement model, too! Parents are involved in EL days like Nevada Farm and Ranch Days, Barnes and Noble Author’s Debut, and other EL days.
The small community support has such a big impact on our students, and our community public charter school needs you.
Changing Education through PLAY®
The SNACS PLAY® model and the PLAY® Interactive Choice Board, designed and developed by SNACS CEO Dr. Kimberly Regan, was featured on an ALL ACCESS Public Television national docuseries about Changing Education through Innovation. Click the link to watch the video: https://www.allaccessptv.com/features-id1124005342/