A federal judge said Baltimore school leaders have made significant progress in addressing problems troubling a computer system that tracks special-education students, but warned that he was not dropping his threat to hold those officials in contempt of court.

U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis said in an order issued Friday that while the district had "moved forward in systematically addressing the salient problems" with the computer system, he expressed concern that school leaders did not seriously work on the computer problems until he threatened them with contempt.

Despite the recent progress, Garbis said there were reports of computer malfunctions that caused the system to operate slowly and freeze. He ordered school leaders to find ways to address the problem by Jan. 31.

In October, Garbis had threatened to hold schools Chief Executive Officer Carmen V. Russo and Joseph J. Kirkman, the chief technology officer, in contempt of court for failing to get the computer system working before school started in early September.

At that time, Garbis gave the school leaders a last chance to improve technical aspects of the computer system that were contributing to its breakdown, saying that he would take action if the work was not completed by this month. He also threatened to hold school board members in contempt if they allowed Russo or Kirkman to leave their jobs before the computer tracking system was functioning.

In the most recent order, Garbis said he was not lifting the threat of issuing a contempt order.

Gayle Amos, who heads special education services for the school system, said through a spokeswoman that the progress made by the district to improve the student tracking system was a collaborative effort among a number of departments.

In addition to correcting problems that are causing the computer system to run slowly and freeze, the school system also has to implement a system that would allow psychologists, teachers, speech pathologists and social workers to enter data into a child's file whenever they work with a child.

The introduction of the "Encounter Tracking Software"' will begin at selected pilot schools Jan. 13.

Garbis has the power to intervene in the education of Baltimore's special-education students as a result of a lawsuit filed 18 years ago against the school district. The district is legally required to ensure that the system is functioning properly.