SALEM - The state Board of Education on Thursday recommended that schools not be required to give tests in four additional subjects for high school students to obtain special achievement certificates.

The board is under pressure from cash-strapped school officials who say their teachers are spread too thin to take on a new workload.

The certificates of initial mastery are part of the state's 1991 education reform law. Schools must offer the certificates, but they aren't required for graduation.

The board also is reacting to lawmakers who want to limit the testing for an initial mastery certificate to the existing subjects of reading, writing, math and science.

Arts, second languages, social studies and physical education were to be added to the certificate requirements by 2006. Changing the requirements takes legislative action.

"None of us wants to do this," said State School Superintendent Susan Castillo. But she said declining state funding has left many schools unable to even meet the existing test requirements.

The board vote was 6-1, with Donnie Griffin of Portland opposed.

Local schools would be free to use the state-adopted tests in the four additional subjects. But Griffin said he feared making subjects optional could downgrade the emphasis on them. The board should stick to its principles that all the subjects be treated equally, Griffin said.

"The Legislature is abandoning a significant obligation to all children," he said after the vote.

The panel's decision is in line with a bill sponsored by Rep. Vic Backlund, chairman of the House Education Committee, who wants to limit the tests to the current subjects.

"I'm pleased with the action the board took," said Backlund, a Salem Republican. "We're pretty much on the same page."

The reform law also includes a certificate of advanced mastery, which emphasizes developing a potential occupational plan.

Backlund wants to retain the certificates, while some lawmakers are proposing to eliminate them on grounds they're of little use and add too much costly paperwork.

In a related matter, the board was told that 15 school districts have reported they are out of compliance with the state's minimum required hours of instructional time because they have pared schools days due to budget shortfalls.

The Portland School District, the state's biggest, is on the list. But the report was made before teachers there agreed to work 10 free days and local government money was raised to restore a full school year.

School districts not providing the required teaching hours have to comply by the start of the next school year or seek a one-year extension from the state superintendent.

The rules require 990 instructional hours a year in grades 9-12, for example.

State funding can be withheld - though that has never has happened - from districts that don't submit plans for correcting the deficiency.

Other districts that have notified the state they aren't complying with teaching hour requirements because they shrunk the school year include Corvallis, Warrenton-Hammond, Medford, Eagle Point, Ashland, Douglas County, David Douglas and Parkrose.