Modify and Adjust: Senior Inquiry as a Transformative Whole-School Program for Race and Social Justice

Senior Inquiry is a dual-credit bridge program partnership between University Studies and regional school districts. The partnerships with Portland Public Schools have prioritized serving first-generation students and other underserved populations. As the program has grown, equity concerns among the collaborative teaching teams prompted experimenting with a whole-school model at Jefferson High School Middle College for Advanced Studies while working within the frame of the course theme of Race and Social Justice. This article documents how the Jefferson Senior Inquiry team attempts to authentically address the accumulated systemic inequities encountered by students in our classrooms. Student-centered pedagogy must be modified and adjusted to meet students where they are. Using the example of a summer assignment and engagement with visionary fiction, we show how we implement the inquiry model with our collaborative and iterative planning.