By Daniela Santos and Malina Gallegos

The controversy between Jefferson County School Board Member Julie Williams’ proposal to create a board committee to review the AP U.S. History and elementary health curriculum has led this conservative to explain herself numerous times.

Students and teachers interpreted this proposal as her censoring the truth about the history of the United States which thus caused daily protest from numerous Jefferson County high schools. Highlights of Williams clarifying her reasoning for the committee include her interview on NBC, her press release and her Fox 31 Denver interview. So far there has been no grave frustration over the want to review the elementary health curriculum to the same scale as APUSH.

Before these protests caught the attention of a national audience some may not know who the board member in the middle of all of this is. Forty-seven-year-old Julie Williams is a Colorado native who is one of three conservative Jeffco board members and is a part of the Neville family, which is a well-known political dynasty in Colorado.

She is a graduate of Jeffco schools and has two sons. Her oldest son is autistic and her youngest is gifted and talented; she has served for over four years on the district’s Special Education Advisory Committee. In a Denver Post story covering the political family, it was reported that Williams was not a too-involved parent, for she did not attend PTA meetings due to the gatherings’ “liberal agenda.”

Williams has caught the attention of the news before her curriculum committee proposal. In 2013 there were allegations that her hiring of a lawyer disobeyed Jeffco’s open-meeting laws. She claimed it did not.

The overall goal she had in mind in her original Sept. 15 proposal for AP US History was to “present the most current factual information accurately and objectively” and that the materials “should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.” Williams also wanted the curriculum to shine the United States in a positive light, claiming that the curriculum was not doing so as of now.

After this statement, negative reactions against this proposition began to spread around the schools and thus making Williams further explain herself.

In an interview for NBC local news, she then said that she does not want the current curriculum to raise “little rebels,” and assured that “the committee would only look at the curriculum as changed under the Common Core and whether textbooks are appropriate.”

The Common Core is a set of standards that multiple states share with the hopes of bettering their students’ education. Williams strongly opposes the Common Core and sees the intentions of these goals to be harmful for the students.

In her Sep. 22 press release, Williams tried to once again try to clarify her proposal. In this release she makes the claim that, “APUSH is new,” and that the new curriculum “ignores lessons on the Boston Tea Party, Lexington, Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address” and many more. On Sept. 24 she even shared a video trying to further push this point that the current curriculum is leaving out these famous events.

Where Williams tries to explain herself the most is in her FOX31 Denver interview. The headline is, “School Board member at center of Jeffco AP History controversy explains what she has in mind” and yet, the explanation seems unclear. When asked if she has looked at what the structure of the curriculum she answered that she had but briefly, “and that’s why I would like to have this committee,” she responded.

The reporter even checked each district approved textbook for the AP class to see if the events that Williams claimed were not taught were provided in the text. Each book mentioned these supposedly ignored historical events, but Williams then responded that, “Even if they are in the textbooks, it doesn’t mean the teachers teach it.”

In response to the protest, Williams blames the district’s teachers union Jefferson County Education Association for supporting the students and permitting their behavior.

William did not respond to a Haystack email request for comment.