As a non-public, non-licensed school registered with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Virtuous Academy is free to operate without a certified teacher and without much oversight from the state.

State education department regulations say that, in order to operate, the school must be owned or operated by a church or other religious body. In this case, the City of Hope Church of the Nazarene in Duquesne has provided a home for the school and the national and South Hills branches of the church have provided funding.

Dallas Mucci, a Nazarene minister from Bethel Park, is the president of the board of Virtuous Academy, and has experience overseeing Nazarene church schools in the New York City metro area, where he served as a church superintendent for 24 years.

Duquesne native Iyana Tennon is the principal and teacher of Virtuous Academy's 11 students. Ms. Tennon holds a bachelor's degree in education from Clarion University of Pennsylvania but said she has twice failed the state teacher certification test.

Also in order to operate, a nonpublic, non-licensed school must be registered with the state Education Department and the operators must fill out and submit an affidavit identifying themselves, the location of all classes and the name and address of the governing church or religious affiliation.

Ms. Tennon has complied with this requirement.

Operators of nonpublic, non-licensed schools must also provide the state with an occupancy permit from the local municipality to verify that the area they are using is appropriate for a school, according to Michael Race, acting director of the Office of Press and Communications for the Education Department.

Virtuous Academy has an occupancy certificate from the City of Duquesne.

Nonpublic, non-licensed schools are also required to comply with the state's requirement of 180 days of attendance or 900 hours of instruction. That means if students are truant, school officials must report the truancies to education officials.

However, Mr. Race said, the state Education Department "does not have authority to conduct site visits or inspections for nonpublic, non-licensed religious schools."

In addition, Mr. Race said. "nonpublic, non-licensed schools are responsible for developing their own policies and procedures for the operation of the school."

For instance, Ms. Tennon is not following the Individualized Education Plans for four of her students who were identified by the Duquesne City School District as special education students.

And she is not required to do so, said Sarah McCluan, a spokeswoman for the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, which operates the Duquesne City School District, but also provides special education services to a number of districts in Allegheny County.

"Legally, when a parent chooses to put their child into a private or nonpublic school, legally the school is not bound to honor the IEP in any form. However, the school cannot mislead the parents into believing that they can provide services which they cannot or never intend to do," Mrs. McCluan said.

There is funding for special education services to students in private schools and those services are generally offered by the AIU. Schools must apply annually for the services and Ms. Tennon said she is not certain if she will apply for special education services for the 2009-10 school year.