SYRACUSE - Representa-tives from the NAACP and Wawasee Schools will meet Thursday to focus on changing the system that allowed the Klan worksheet into the classroom.

Eight members of the NAACP Board, Fort Wayne chapter, will meet with Superintendent Mark Stock and other officials at the Rock Church to discuss what happened at Syracuse Elementary - and how to keep it from happening again.

Liz Dobynes of the NAACP said she has seen this type of activity in communities before, but "I was appalled that it was done in the school system - I never thought they'd be brazen enough," she said.

The school corporation has developed a Minority Issues Task Force, which on Tuesday recommended, among other things, sensitivity training for staff. But Dobynes believes other steps can be taken.

"They have to re-do the curriculum," she said. "I don't mind teaching about the Klan, but you have to balance that. They're not a social club."

Dobynes said this morning that quality of education is also important. "I don't care how integrated we are; if the quality of education isn't there, it's not good for the children."

She credits the community for bringing the issue into the open. "There's no black folks up there - maybe one or two. It had to be those good white folks that love God that spoke out," she said.

Sarah Tuttle, pastor of the Rock Church, faxed the worksheet to Stock after someone in her church showed it to her.

Tuttle opened her church today for a "unity prayer service." "We're encouraging people not to go near the rally, to say 'yes' to God and 'no' to the Klan," she said. "We need to stand together in unity and not give in to fear."

Dobynes approves of this approach to the issue. "It takes good people who love the Lord to step out and say, 'Not in our city, not in our town, not in our community,' " she said.

"We know we still have to stay urgent, stay in prayer," she said. "Goodness is going to win if we hang in there together." [[In-content Ad]]