HILO, Hawai'i — Waiakea High School freshman Ben Zee appears at the school industrial arts shop during recess to tinker with parts he has been trying to fashion into a working electric motor.

It is a task Zee, 14, pursues partly for a grade and partly because he simply is interested. Poised with a pair of pliers over wires, he explains that he enjoys the class because "you get to learn how a lot of things function."

Fueled with a three-year, $300,000 federal Department of Education grant, Waiakea has developed six academies or career paths on campus that allow students to pursue disciplines that most interest them.

Waiakea, the first Big Island public school to fully develop that approach, now offers specialties in industrial technology and engineering; business; Pacific Rim cultures and natural resources; public and human-service studies; health and fitness; and arts and communications.

Students select their academies as sophomores, and begin work on their path as juniors. The academies cluster like-minded students together, making a large and modern high-school campus feel smaller and more "personalized," said Louann Kimura, curriculum coordinator for Waiakea.

"It's basically exposure, to give the kids an opportunity to see and have choices — especially those that are not sure of what they want to do," principal Kelcy Koga said.

Waiakea also established "houses" for ninth- and 10th-graders in which students are taught by teams of teachers, thereby creating a system where a team watches over the same group of youngsters. The system makes tracking student progress easier.

Early indications are that the retention rate for ninth-graders is dropping, meaning more students are completing required coursework on time during their freshman year, Kimura said.

The administration is housed in portable classrooms and temporary offices behind the library, while repairs are planned for the school's main administration building, which burned in a fire on April 11, 2006, that caused an estimated $1.5 million in damage. Investigators found that arson caused the blaze.

"We make do," Koga said. "The school has always been innovative and has always been a front-runner as far as our academic rigor.

"We have a lot of alumni working on campus, and I think that says something about the school when those who graduate want to come back and return and teach here. A lot of our staff have their own kids who come here. That says a lot about the school as well."