Dayton Students to Study Human and Civil Rights

DAYTON - The Dayton School District plans to introduce two new pro­grams next year to enhance students' understanding of human rights and civil rights issues. These efforts come after two highly publicized incidents involving racial and ethnic slurs.

In January, a program called "Living Voices," on the topic of civil rights, will be presented to Junior and Senior High School Stu­dents. The program is sched­uled to coincide with the Martin Luther King holiday, according to School Super­intendent Doug Johnson.

Living Voices is a Seattle based dramatic group, which will present a play called "The Right to Dream." It is tentatively scheduled for January 21, which is King's birthday.

The Dayton Schools will also partner with Whitman College in a program called "The Movement." Dayton students will be bused to the Whitman campus on January 31, where Whitman students will present human and civil rights lessons. The program has been in place in the Walla Walla Public Schools for two years.

These programs are being initiated by Johnson as a re­action to recent incidents in­volving students dressing as Ku Klux Klan members on Halloween, and a swastika being burned in the school lawn on November 6.

Both incidents received substantial coverage by tele­vision news teams in Tri- Cities, as well as the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin.

Johnson said that many kids in Dayton may not understand the importance these symbols, since they haven't grown up in a highly diverse society.

"The question is, how do we best help our kids be suc­cessful in a diverse environ­ment," Johnson said. "Many of them won't stay in Dayton the rest of their lives."