Six of nine Oregon schools that had been singled out as low-achieving by the federal government, including one in Milton-Freewater, recently earned a reprieve from a mandate to let their students go to higher scoring schools, officials said Wednesday.

The schools were targeted as part of the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act, which puts pressure on low-achieving schools to improve.

The act stipulates that after two consecutive years of poor performance on state assessment tests, school districts must pay to bus children to other schools of their choice.

But the six Oregon schools in question improved on 2001 tests, so the federal Department of Education says they can wait until January – when results from the 2002 testing season will be released – to see whether they still fit the low-achieving profile.

The affected schools are French Prairie Middle School and Heritage Elementary School in Woodburn; Marshall High School in Portland; Central Middle School in Milton-Freewater; Siletz Elementary School near Newport; and Swegle Elementary School in Salem.

Steve Carnes, who is principal at Central Middle School, said he was confident the 2002 test scores would show improvement. “We have worked extremely hard and have done an evaluations of weak spots.”

While he did not want to make excuses for the low year, Carnes said the test scores that are causing a problem were unusually low that year.

The teaching staff was focusing on areas they had not before like math problem solving, geometry and working hard on the state assessment, Carnes said.

The school was also focusing more on motivating and preparing students for the test so they would understand how important it was.

The Milton-Freewater middle school is expecting 450 students when the school year starts Wednesday, he said.

If they slip, the schools will have to let students have the choice to go to other schools for free in January.

Carnes said his understanding was students could only transfer within their district, which limited their options. “We are the only middle school and they don’t really have another option.”

Roosevelt and Jefferson High Schools in Portland still have to offer the transportation options to students, because they did not demonstrate significant testing improvement.

The ninth school, the AIM alternative high school in the David Douglas school district, opted not to use any more federal Title 1 dollars, and so does not have to comply with the requirements.

At Marshall, 42 students have already requested transfers and been approved, said interim principal John Wilhelmi.

Whether districts honor those transfers will be up to them to decide, said Ric LaTour, the director of the office of student services at the Oregon Department of Education.

Only a small handful of students requested transfers from the other schools, but Marshall could lose a chunk of funding if 42 students do transfer.

“We’re going to go ahead and honor the transfer requests,” said Roger Stewart, director of administrative services at the Lincoln County School District, home to Siletz Elementary. “We are already into the process.”

The Oregon schools in question mostly serve heavily minority and low-income neighborhoods. The two Woodburn schools are majority Latino. Siletz Elementary is 45 percent American Indian. Jefferson High is 75 percent African American and Latino. Central Middle School is 38 percent to 40 percent Latino.