Women’s History in High School was founded by Kristen Kelly and Serene Williams, two long time high school teachers and recent recipients of the Schlesinger Library Teaching Grant at Harvard. They are the leaders of a campaign to create the first nationwide course on women’s history, AP Women’s U.S. History, also known as WAPUSH. Kristen and Serene work alongside a large team of student interns committed to advocating for an AP Women’s U.S. History course. Kristen and Serene are the inaugural recipients of the Meryl Streep Educator Award given by the National Women’s History Museum.
About Kristen Kelly & Serene Williams
Kristen Kelly is a co-founder of the grassroots WAPUSH campaign, for the first nationwide AP course on women’s history. She earned her B.A. in history from Montana State University and her M.A. in Cultural Historical Religion from the Graduate Theological Union-Berkeley. While teaching high school for twenty years, she created a popular “Gender & Sexuality in the Bible” course and co-taught interdisciplinary Women’s Studies courses as well as AP Modern World History, AP Comparative Government and Politics, and AP US Government & Politics. Kristen loves collaborating with scholars, teachers, and students and has presented at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference, the National Council for Social Studies, the American Historical Association Conference, Western Association of Women’s Historians, & The Berkshire Conference of Women’s Historians. Kristen and Serene are currently under contract to work on two books about women in U.S. history; one on feminism from 1960-1979 for the International Baccalaureate (IB) program and an edited collection on teaching women’s suffrage with Professor Kelly Marino. Kristen has also led Girl Scout Troop 61981 for over nine years as they completed their 50 hours of service through educational advocacy on the WAPUSH campaign earning their Silver Award. Kristen’s two children and husband Thomas have been her biggest supporters along this incredible journey and her most honored accomplishment.
Kristen has taught the following courses:
- AP World History
- AP U.S. Government/Women in Politics
- AP Comparative Government & Politics
- Gender & Religion
- U.S. Women’s History, Honors
- Women’s World History, Honors
- Women in American Studies
- World Religions
- Modern World History
- Social Ethics
- Christian Scriptures
- History of Christianity
- Personal Ethics
- Hebrew Ethics
Serene Bennett Williams is a co-founder of the WAPUSH campaign, the first nationwide course proposal on women’s history. She earned her B.A. degree from Purdue University and her M.A. from San Francisco State University, both in political science with a concentration in women’s studies. For over two decades, she has taught courses at the high school and collegiate levels. Serene teaches numerous AP courses and has written curriculum for many women’s history courses including Women in World History, Honors, Women in U.S. History, Honors and Women in American Studies. Serene has worked for the College Board as an AP reader for multiple exams and frequently presents about teaching intersectional feminist political history at national conferences including the National Women’s Studies Association, the National Council of Social Studies, the American Historical Association, the Berkshire Conference of Women’s Historians and the Western Association of Women Historians. Serene is an independent historian who publishes about the political history of women and was recently hired as an advisor to the new ABC-CLIO database on women’s history. Serene currently serves as a board member for the National Women’s History Alliance as as a Teacher Facilitator for the National Constitution Center. She volunteers as a Wikipedian and for the last several years has been working on a campaign to improve articles about the Equal Rights Amendment. Serene is the proud mother of two college aged daughters who have been involved with the WAPUSH campaign from its inception and has been happily married for nearly thirty years to her husband Jason, who is a wonderful advocate for women’s rights.
Serene has taught the following courses:
- AP U.S. Government/Women in Politics
- AP U.S. Government & Politics
- AP Comparative Government & Politics
- AP World History
- AP U.S. History
- U.S. Women’s History, Honors
- Women’s World History, Honors
- Women in American Studies
- Women’s Studies
- Global Studies
- International Relations
- World Civilizations
- Modern World History
- U.S. History
- U.S. History, Honors
- Government for Teachers (San Jose State University)
- Intro to American Politics (San Francisco State University)
Conference Presentations
Kristen & Serene have presented all over the United States & in Canada about the need for more women’s history in K-12 schools
Workshop: Campaigning for AP Women’s U.S. History, Western Association of Women Historians, Sacramento, CA, April 2026
Presenters at this workshop from left to right: Serene Williams, Kristen Kelly, Kaitlyn Ficker, Avery Chen and Tina Zhang
Panel on Feminism in Schools, National Women’s Studies Association, Puerto Rico, November 2025
Presenters at this panel included Madison Verner, Kristen Kelly, Geneva Williams, Alondra Flores, Serene Williams
“Women’s History in the High School Classroom” Ms. Magazine Archive Workshop, Ms. office, Los Angeles, September 2025
At this event, Kristen and Serene worked alongside Brooke Soderbery, Sheila Chatterjee, Lucy Irvine and Sierra Burton, an archivist and a graduate of the women’s history course taught by Kristen & Serene. Sierra was part of the first cohort of students to take an AP U.S. Government/Women in Politics course
“Educational Activism: Proposing an AP U.S. Women’s History Course” National Council of Social Studies, Boston, November 2024
Serene and Kristen presented alongside Brooke Soderbery, Samantha Pyle, Kate Ragatz, Shannon Bennitt and Clara Robinson
“Teaching a Combined AP U.S. Government and Politics/Women in Politics Course” AP Conference, Las Vegas, July 2024
Kristen and Serene presented alongside Annabelle Williams, Chris Almazon Razo, Faith Kelly, Kate Ragatz
“Proposing an AP U.S. Women’s History Course” American Historical Association, San Francisco, January 2024″
The WAPUSH team presented alongside Brooke Soderbery, Gabriella Perez, Samatha Pyle, Coco Kling, Grace Fitzpatrick and secured support from Dr. Barbara Winslow
“Proposing an AP U.S. Women’s History Course” National Council of Social Studies, Nashville, November 2023
Serene and Kristen presented alongside Ginger O’Grady, Samantha Pyle, Shannon Bennitt, Kate Ragatz and Dr. Wendy Rouse
“Decolonizing Middle and High School Curriculum Through Intersectional Feminism” National Council of Social Studies, Texas, November 2019
Kristen and Serene presented alongside Dr. Wendy Rouse and teacher Rachel Merlo
“Women’s History Partnerships Between Teachers & Scholars” Seneca Falls Dialogues Conference, October 2018
Kristen and Serene presented alongside Dr. Wendy Rouse
Additional Presentations
- “Rose Colored Glasses: Queering Reaganism in the High School Classroom” Queer History Conference, San Francisco, June 2022. Serene presented alongside Sadie Queally-Sammut
- “Teaching Queer Lives: Resisting Historical Erasure through LGBTQ History”, National Women’s Studies Association, San Francisco, November 2019
- “Women’s History Partnerships Between Scholars & Secondary Educators” National Women’s Studies Conference (NWSA) in Atlanta, November 2018
- “Teaching Women in History as a Form of Differentiated Instruction” National Council of Social Studies in San Francisco, November 2017
- “Student and Faculty Perspectives on Intersectionality and Fourth Wave Feminism in Secondary Education “Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, Hofstra University, May 2017
- “Decolonizing Intersectional Feminist History Curriculum at the Secondary Level” at NWSA Conference in Montreal, Canada, November 2016
- “Catholic Feminism in Secondary Schools” NWSA Conference in Milwaukee, WI, November 2015
- “Teaching Gender in Secondary Schools” at California Association of Independent School Conference in Oakland, CA, March 2015