WAILUKU, Maui — In three upstairs classrooms, students at the Isaiah Academy for Excellence sit quietly at computers, intently reading about world geography or working on math problems.

Each is following an individualized "goal sheet" that sets out the day's assignments. Stationed nearby is a teacher ready to lend assistance.

Ninth-grader Royce Nitta, 14, who enrolled at the academy two years ago after attending public school in California, said he likes working on his own and that the self-directed curriculum requires students to take responsibility for keeping up with their lessons.

"All of us get individualized curriculum, so if some of us are less advanced than others, we don't have to wait for others to catch up. We can go at our own pace," Nitta said.

The Isaiah Academy for Excellence was started two years ago under the auspices of Door of Faith Church in Wailuku, although it now operates somewhat independently of the church and only two of the school's 22 students are church members, said principal and teacher Kimberly Hays.

The academy uses the Switched-On Schoolhouse curriculum devised by Alpha Omega Publications, which also offers material for homeschoolers. It is a computer-based curriculum that provides an interactive learning environment with 3-D animation, video clips and other multimedia.

The program is written on the principle of "mastery learning," in which students are given the time they need to master the content and skills of one unit before progressing to the next.

Isaiah students gather in three groups: grades four to six, seven to eight, and high school. As they file their lessons, quizzes and tests, computers keep track of how well they performed, which answers were wrong, and how long it took them to complete the work.

Hays, who worked for many years in public schools, said the system makes it easier to closely monitor student progress at the click of a computer mouse. In a traditional classroom setting, she said, "you don't know if a student is falling behind until they take the quiz two weeks later."

Several times a month there are "Power Pack" days when students leave their computer stations to work together on science and language arts activities.

Hays said the curriculum is not for every learner, but she has seen it build confidence in those who struggled in regular schools.