Teachers To Have Day For Training On Race

An in-service education day for Ann Arbor teachers to discuss the subject of race relations will be held Oct. 8. This date was approved last night by the Board of Education, despite the objections of Trustee Paul H. Johnson who voted against it. The in-service training day is the first of two programs which will be held this year. The second date has not yet been set. The establishment of such race relations training programs was originally proposed by the Ann Arbor Education Association, and was also one of the 21 demands presented by the black students of Ann Arbor High School last spring. The Oct. 8 date was approved by a 8-1 vote. Johnson, who cast the lone "no" vote, said he did so because he was "fed up with the psychotrc obsession of race orientation." "There are other areas of education which are more important than this," he said. "This assembly would f orce teachers to attend the program even if they did not want to." Johnson said the school district was "going overboard" on the subject of race relations and "not keeping things in perspective." Trustees William C. Godfrey and Hazen J. Schumacher Jr. reminded Johnson the school board is bound to approve two in-service training days according to a provisión of the 1968-70 contract wrth the Ann Arbor Education Association. Ronald R. Edmonds, human relations director for the Ann Arbor Public Schools, told the trustees the program would be divided into two parts. Lectures and panel discussions on the subject of race relations in the public schools will take place in the morning. Small discussion groups will be formed in the afternoon. In the evening, he said, the teachers and their spouses will be invited to attend a lecture by a professional black historian. Black civil rights leaders and educational experts will participate in the program. The students will have no classes on program days.