Related in seaQwa: Mount Si tolerance controversy

Kit McCormick accepted a position at Seattle School District's Garfield High School in July, SnoValley Star reports.

McCormick told the Star that a conservative parent-founded group, Coalition to Defend Education (CODE), influenced her decision to leave. She described the group as a "closed-minded, very right wing, and vocal minority" that has made it more difficult to teach at the school.

"After the events of last year, I felt I wasn't able to work effectively at Mount Si," McCormick said.

During the 2008 Martin Luther King Jr. assembly at Mount Si, McCormick asked guest speaker Hutcherson how he could stand for equality if he didn't stand for gay rights. After the assembly, Hutcherson asked the school to fire both McCormick and another teacher, George Potratz, who booed Hutcherson at the assembly.

McCormick's role in the public eye intensified in April during the Day of Silence, a day in which about 200 Mount Si students chose to remain mute to promote tolerance and draw attention to the harassment gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people face.

Hutcherson and about 100 people from the Antioch Bible Church and other groups protested the Day of Silence while continuing to call for McCormick's removal from the classroom.

A Mount Si teacher since 2004, McCormick taught advanced-placement British literature and 10th-grade language arts honors at the suburban high school.

Mount Si High School Principal Randy Taylor who resisted pressure from Hutcherson to fire McCormick praised her contribution to the school's advanced placement organization and curriculum.

"Kit McCormick is an outstanding teacher. The Seattle community will be pleased with her focus on learning and students," said Taylor. "It is their gain and our loss. She will be missed."

McCormick is largely known for her involvement with the school's Gay Straight Alliance student club, but she also helped students begin the Student Conservative Club at Mount Si High School, the Star reports.

Mount Si teacher Eric Goldhammer, who co-advised the high school's Gay Straight Alliance student club with McCormick, will now be the club's main advisor, said Gay Straight Alliance Student Officer Caitlin Donnelly.

Senior Landon Wilson helped start the club for conservatives.

He told the Star that the Student Conservative Club would "miss having an outside perspective that can talk to us objectively," and said they would have to find someone to fill her shoes.

He and other students also praised McCormick as a great teacher. "I think everybody shares the same sentiment; that we're sad to see her go," Wilson told the Star.

But not everyone in the community nestled in the Cascades foothills shared the good feelings toward the teacher. After the King Day assembly a group of parents in the valley formed CODE which claimed to promote "unbiased teaching that represents all sides of issues."

But McCormick called the coalition of about 260 members "a watchdog out of control," the Star reports.

"This group purports to be about a fair and balanced education in the SVSD, but as far as I can tell, the group exists to publicly defame and harass three teachers in the district -- me, George Potratz, and (Librarian) Elaine Harger," McCormick told the Star. "It's very difficult to work under such circumstances."

CODE president Phillip Garding of North Bend commended McCormick as a good teacher according to the Star, but said her departure could "help the school regain its balance after this last year."

Source: Kit McCormick leaves school district for Garfield High | SnoValley Star