Kit McCormick leaves school district for Garfield High
August 28, 2008
By Laura Geggel
Teacher cites coalition as part of reason
Mount Si High School teacher Kit McCormick is no longer a Wildcat.
The AP British literature and 10th-grade language arts honors teacher accepted a position at Seattle School District’s Garfield High School in July.
McCormick
McCormick said the parent-founded group, Coalition to Defend Education, influenced her decision to leave.
“After the events of last year, I felt I wasn’t able to work effectively at Mount Si,” McCormick said.
A Mount Si teacher since 2004, McCormick is largely known for her involvement with the school’s Gay Straight Alliance student club. She also helped students begin the Student Conservative Club at Mount Si High School.
“I have really enjoyed the students there and working with some of the faculty members,” said McCormick. “It’s been nice to be a teacher in the community where I live.”
During the 2008 Martin Luther King Jr. assembly at Mount Si, McCormick asked guest speaker the Rev. Ken 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.
In the wake of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day assembly, a group of Valley parents formed the Coalition to Defend Education. The coalition, which did not take part in Hutcherson’s protest, was formed to promote student safety, encourage student education and have Snoqualmie Valley schools provide “unbiased teaching that represents all sides of issues,” said President Phillip Garding of North Bend.
But McCormick called the coalition of about 260 members “a watchdog out of control.”
“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 said. “It’s very difficult to work under such circumstances.
“The school and students would be much better served by parents’ involvement in the newly formed PTA. The closed-minded, very right wing and vocal minority should not be the moral compass for the SVSD.”
Garding commended McCormick as a good teacher, but said her departure could “help the school regain its balance after this last year.”
“We have never advocated to have her or any teacher leave,” said Garding. “From all accounts, including my daughter who had her, she was an excellent teacher. It was unfortunate that her personal political views spilled into her interaction with students.”
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.
In spite of the controversy, students said they would miss McCormick.
Senior Landon Wilson took McCormick’s sophomore honors language arts class and used her input when he and other Mount Si students started the Student Conservative Club this past spring.
“She made that class more fun than it had any business being,” Wilson said. “When I heard that (she was leaving), I was really upset. I think everybody shares the same sentiment; that we’re sad to see her go.”
Wilson said 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.
Mount Si High School Principal Randy Taylor praised McCormick’s contribution to the school’s AP 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.”
Taylor noted that McCormick added to “the strong writing program the language arts team has been working so diligently over the past several years and the accompanying high WASL test scores that have resulted from this effort.”
Mount Si, which began reviewing applications for McCormick’s replacement Aug. 22, has yet to hire a new AP teacher.
“We’ll all miss her, but I’m happy that she’ll be in a better place,” said Donnelly.
Reporter Laura Geggel can be reached at 392-6434 x221 or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.
Comments
3 Responses to “Kit McCormick leaves school district for Garfield High”
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It’s apparent by Ms. McCormick’s behavior and responses that the only opinion she feels should be expressed in the classroom is one that agrees with her political belief. School is a place for students to learn reading, writing, and arithmatic and teachers that push their personal views onto students and behave aggressively towards anyone who shows any sign of dissent are the problem with our school systems today. Parents are to be the “watch dogs” for their children that is in fact, part of the job description. If parents don’t like what is going on in their tax paid school system, they have not only the right to say so, they have the obligation.
This is an issue that is being addressed nationwide in many schools. The Coalition to Defend Education is being used as a model to help students in other states address sexual orientation on campus. Groups like GLSEN promote only one view on the origin of homosexuality and leave no room for those who have left the lifestyle through spiritual conversion or reparative therapy. Students who do not agree that homosexual behavior is OK have the first amendment right to that belief. Tolerance must be afforded ex-gays as well as those who self-identify as gay. Student learning is of the utmost importance in our schools and extra-curricular or student organizations that disrupt that learning ought to be minimized.
It’s “difficult,” so she leaves? Wow. Way to set an example for the students and let the out-of-control watchdog group get even MORE so.
I am not talking through my hat here. In 1995, my school district fired me for refusing to practice anti-glbt exclusion in my classroom and curriculum. Yeah, they offered me a “settlement” first. So I could settle for being a hypocrite? I could never have taught my students books such as “To Kill a Mockingbird” or essays by Thoreau or Emerson again had I taken their little “buyout.” I fought them. I lost plenty of salary and benefits, but in the end I was reinstated and am still there. It was not, is not, and never will be easy. Teaching for justice never is. But so what?
Google my name and you’ll probably be able to find the whole story.
Actions like McCormick’s (and they are WAY more common than what I did) make me ashamed to be a public school teacher. It is HER loss, I think. How will she ever again be able to teach works like the ones I mentioned above, knowing she gave in to bigots??
P. Culliton
Temple, NH
(teacher in New Ipswich)