A brand new high school opening this fall hopes to change the face of education in Issaquah.

Gibson Ek High School — named for Issaquah’s first graduating class in 1911, Mary and Olive Gibson and Mabel Ek ­— is not typical of the other schools in the Issaquah School District.

The innovative, real-world high school will have a greater focus on career prep and adhering lesson plans to students’ individual hobbies. When 120 ninth- and 10th-graders come through Gibson Ek’s doors on its premier day of Sept. 1, they will be walking into a high school without grades or bell schedules, and with a different curriculum tailor-made for each student.

“The school is structured around the premise that student interest should fuel learning,” said David Berg, Learning Through Interest Coordinator for Gibson Ek. “The students design their own learning.”

The school aims to reach out to students who have become bored, frustrated, or otherwise disengaged with the traditional school system, and rekindle their excitement for their studies.

“We’re helping students to pursue education that’s relevant to their lives and their future…trying to inspire and re-imagine education,” said Julia Bamba, principal of Gibson Ek. “It’s helping students know they have the ability to make a difference … in the community and the bigger world.”

Around 8 percent of local students drop out of high school, according to the Issaquah School District. Executive Director of the Issaquah Schools Foundation Robin Callahan said that students choose to drop out because traditional schooling “doesn’t feel relevant for them anymore.” Gibson Ek, she said, will keep classes feeling both fresh and pertinent to the students by concentrating more on getting ready for life after high school and less on memorizing points out of a textbook.

With the help of teachers who double as advisers, students will mold a learning plan around their own personal lifelong passions. Tuesdays and Thursdays, the kids will be doing internships in the community in order to get a feel for a career in their area of interest. Instead of stressing over letter grades on exams, students will create projects in their chosen field and give exhibitions four times a year to “demonstrate their learning, research and the work that they’re doing,” Bamba said.

Gibson Ek students will not have to take a set number of math, science, English, social studies and other core classes to meet credit requirements. However, they will need to meet certain competencies in order to prove that they are at the same level as graduates of other Washington high schools after four years. The five competencies are empirical reasoning, quantitative reasoning, communication, social reasoning and personal qualities.

Competencies will be “woven into” the students’ curriculum so that they “will be in line with what the students are interested in learning about,” Callahan said. This way, rather than having to suffer through classes they find boring, students can meet state education goals in a way that is fit around their own hobbies and will benefit their future careers.

For example, Berg said, a student interested in journalism might do an internship with a newspaper, and then fulfill the quantitative reasoning competency by doing a project involving statistical analysis.

“It’s not the math courses, it’s the math content you need,” he said.

According to Berg, the Washington State Board of Education is starting to move “away from credits and towards competencies,” and even colleges are shifting away from placing as high of importance on GPA at admissions time.

Some institutes of higher education have already implemented similar learning patterns to that of Gibson Ek. For example, the Fairhaven Program at Western Washington University allows students to design their own majors, and to avoid letter grades.

The old Issaquah Middle School building will house Gibson Ek; construction to add a covered common area with a stage in the former courtyard is currently underway. While the top floor of the school building will be all classrooms, the bottom will be an “Innovation Space” catering to a variety of hobbies, with a production lab, art supplies, recording studio, ceramics wheel and kiln, sewing station, 3D printer and even a gardening area.

Funding for the high school came from the 2012 school bond; over $8 million from taxpayers and the district have already gone into creating the school. “The community is what makes this possible,” Callahan said. “It passes bonds and levies like no other community. It understands that being able to provide a rich learning environment…is our investment in the future.”

Competition among students and teachers to be part of Gibson Ek is fierce. Seven teachers from the district have been hired on at Gibson Ek, and out of the over 200 students who applied, 120 were chosen through a lottery system.

Those involved stress that Gibson Ek is not an alternative school, as this term tends to be associated with dropouts, low achievers and students with behavioral problems. Rather, Gibson Ek is what Berg calls an “Innovative High School” and will welcome students of all academic achievement levels, according to Bamba.

“It’s for students who do well in smaller environments, for students who work with their hands, for kids who are bored with or don’t see the relevance of school,” Callahan said, to name a few examples.

“We expect Gibson Ek students to go to Stanford,” Berg said, noting that graduates should be fully qualified to attend any college they wish.

“Every child struggles. We’re looking at each child as unique …asking how can they have the best chance to reach their potential?” Callahan said. “We’re excited for an innovative way to make learning come alive for them.”

Berg said that the school is still seeking mentors to take on students as interns. Any business or organization interested should email BergD@issaquah.wednet.edu.

“There are no throwaway years,” Callahan said. “We want our kids to be as competent, confident and successful as possible.”