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 U.S. Women’s History, also known as WAPUSH. Kristen and Serene are also fortunate to work alongside a team of students committed to advocating for an AP U.S. Women’s History course.
About Kristen & Serene
Serene Bennett Williams earned her B.A. degree from Purdue University and her M.A. from San Francisco State University, both in political science. 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. She frequently presents about teaching intersectional feminist political history at national conferences. Serene is also an independent historian who publishes about the political history of women and recently worked 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. She also volunteers as a Wikipedian and for the last few years has been working on a campaign to improve articles about the Equal Rights Amendment. Serene and Kristen are currently working on two books about women in U.S. history.
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
- 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)
Kristen Kelly has a M.A. in Cultural Historical Religion from the Graduate Theological Union-Berkeley and teaches all high school levels. She created a popular “Gender & Sexuality in the Bible” course and co-taught the interdisciplinary Women’s Studies courses as well as AP Government & Politics courses with Serene. Kristen loves collaborating with scholars and teachers and has presented at The National Women’s Studies Association Conference, The National Council for Social Studies, the American Historical Association Conference & The Berkshire Conference of Women’s Historians. Kristen loves teaching religion and history from an intersectional lens, focusing especially on gender and sexuality issues.
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
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
“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 also 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 Rachel Merlo
“Women’s History Partnerships Between Teachers & Scholars” Seneca Falls Dialogues Conference, October 2018
- “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