Only a week into the school year, students at the new Gibson Ek High School were already full of praise for the school’s revolutionary new learning system.

The “Innovative High School,” as Learning Through Interest Coordinator David Berg refers to it, allows students to design their own learning plan based on their interests, hobbies and planned career path. Two days a week, students will leave campus and get out into the working world, where they will work in internships that are in their field of study. The idea is that students will be more focused and better prepared for college and their careers if they can take classes that are meaningful for their futures, rather than classes that simply round out a checklist.

Instead of earning letter grades, students four times per year design and present projects for evaluation. They do not have to take any required classes for credits, but they do need to meet five overall competencies — empirical reasoning, quantitative reasoning, communication, social reasoning and personal qualities — to graduate at the same level as other Washington students.

Gibson Ek’s goal is “to engage them in things they are passionate and curious about,” Principal Julia Bamba said. “It’s real-world, project-based learning.”

“It’s hands-on learning,” described Teagan Servais, 15. “If I actually go and do it, make mistakes and try again, I’m more likely to remember how to do it.”

Walking through Gibson Ek is experiencing an environment where the constraints of traditional schooling have been shaken off. At Gibson Ek, instructors are called by their first names, students pass freely through undefined open spaces that fill multiple roles, and kids only do as much homework as they need to complete their individual goals.

Fourteen-year-old Maria Meadows called the school “more relaxed.”

“We can work at our own pace,” Meadows said. “When you feel like you’re done, you’re done.”

“I feel really content with how it’s already going,” said Emily Dahm, 14. “I feel like I have more purpose.”

Students couldn’t help comparing Gibson Ek with the more standard schools they were used to, but not one of the students who spoke to the Reporter expressed a preference for the traditional way of education.

“I love Gibson Ek. It’s way better than all the other schools I’ve been to,” Megan Richins, 13, was quick to say. “During project work time, we get to do what we want … and there’s a really nice sense of community.”

“At Skyline High School, there was a lot more busy work … just cramming stuff in my brain,” said Elena Yerges, 15. “Here I’m …acquiring skills I normally wouldn’t acquire.”

“I was tired of having to learn things I’d never really use,” 13-year-old Ben Royce stated. At Gibson Ek, he is able to pursue computer programming, something he said he “could never get at a traditional high school.”

Mira Sickinger, 14, wants to study biology, but said in her previous classes, “we spent a lot of time getting into the nitty-gritty of things that don’t really matter.”

“If math or science would go too slow or too fast or you just didn’t understand the way they were taught, there wasn’t an option for you,” Servais said.

Yerges observed that Gibson Ek already felt to her more open and laid-back than her old school, noting that she was chatting with “Julia” [Principal Julia Bamba] during lunch about the kind of “normal” topics she’d discuss with a friend.

Students described how the homework load at their previous high and middle schools was so heavy that their lives were dominated by stress, and they weren’t able to get a healthy night’s sleep.

“I had problems with stress,” Richins said. “There were so many hours of homework per night.”

“The amounts of homework were insane, and the pressure was crazy” said 15-year-old Avery Hasselbech. “It was a very negative environment.” Hasselbech said that in order to finish all of her homework, she regularly got only two to three hours of sleep per night. As a result, she fell very ill for three weeks during the winter of 2016.

Advisor Mitra Kundu, who had been a science teacher at the former Tiger Mountain High School, appreciates how small and tight-knit Gibson Ek is. With just 120 students and 11 staff members, the school presents a much different vision from other schools in the area that are bursting with population.

“I have seen the benefits of working with a community in a small class,” Kundu said. “What I’ve observed is, if you have a small number of students, you can not only communicate but connect.”

Even the school’s setup reflects its unusual learning environment. Glass walls and open doors add fluidity and blend different advisory groups together. The Innovation Space blends sewing machines and a fume hood in a room that is at once art lab and science lab, and the lunch room can also be a school meeting space or theatre; in other words, there are as few walls as limits.

“This is a space for everyone to use. It isn’t one space,” Berg said.

During afternoon advisory period — Gibson Ek’s version of a lesson in a classroom — students gathered in groups in the Innovation Space creating projects to beautify the school. Dahm and her friends planned out how to make a fish tank for the space, while Yerges and her friend Kat Bradford, 15, were busy working out how to cover the ceiling lights with colored fabric. Because the lamps are too high up to measure, the girls had to use math to figure out the precise calculations.

“We had to use math to find the angle [of the light],” Bradford explained. “You can relate to this math. You know how you can use it in real life.”

Advisor Ben Reed, who taught math at Issaquah High School for the past 12 years, said that he enjoys a learning environment where, rather than the same predictable lessons, students and advisors have “a surprise every day.”

When asked why he decided to switch workplaces, Reed said it only made sense.

“I felt like the last 12 years, I’ve gotten better and better at teaching kids, but lost the genuine connection to kids, and I wanted that back,” he said.