Curriculum

Tenor Journal Square provides students with the opportunity to graduate with a high school diploma and a certificate from Milwaukee Area Technical College in a specific area of concentration of their choice. 

By maintaining a future focus, we hope our students will leave Tenor to be well-rounded, productive citizens in the Milwaukee community, instilled with a strong sense of self-worth, identity, and leadership.

Currently, all courses follow a curriculum map based on Common Core Standards. In addition to a comprehensive high school curriculum in math, science, social studies, and English language arts, Tenor Journal Square offers a wide-ranging and rigorous selection of courses to meet diverse academic interests.

Tenor High School is a certified Project Lead The Way School! In the fall of 2010, Tenor High School implemented Project Lead the Way (PLTW) thanks to a grant received from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. PLTW is a nationally recognized program that prepares students to be innovative and productive leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Through an engaging, hands-on curriculum, PLTW encourages the development of problem-solving skills, critical thinking, creative innovative reasoning, and a love of learning. Tenor currently offers the following PLTW courses: Introduction to Engineering Design (IED), Principles of Engineering, Digital Electronics, and Principles of Biomedical Science.

Our Innovation Lab features digital design workspaces and professional-level fabrication machinery, allowing students to engineer, build, and collaborate on interdisciplinary projects.  The Lab enhances Tenor’s Project Lead The Way program and complements the school’s signature “3+1” dual certification model. Outfitted with the latest cutting-edge technologies, the Lab includes a CNC Milling Machine, laser cutter, vinyl cutter, 3D Printers, and more!

The development of a student’s reading proficiency doesn’t stop when a student leaves elementary school. While those formative years are crucial, we also recognize the importance of focusing literacy into students’ high school years. With this goal in mind, in 2025, Tenor launched a full-year pilot of Riveting Results, an online curriculum emphasizing different reading and writing practices in order to improve students’ reading fluency. Riveting Results incorporates complex texts and grade-level reading into a curriculum that supports all students in meeting their grade-level literacy standards.

With the knowledge that student access to high-quality instruction in Algebra 1 often impacts students’ post-secondary success, Tenor High School uses an Illustrative Mathematics curriculum in its Algebra 1 and 2 classes. Illustrative Mathematics is a high-quality, standards-aligned, and problem-based core curriculum that prioritizes student activity and engagement over direct instruction. The curriculum includes more conversation, writing, and activities than would be found in a typical math class. Instead of teacher-led lectures and practice problems, the students do the majority of the thinking, wrestling with complex problems under the teacher’s guidance. 

Tenor students who are interested in healthcare careers have the opportunity to participate in a dedicated CNA certification program. The program includes the classwork, clinicals, and assessments students need to earn their CNA certification. During Tenor students’ senior year of high school, during which they attend college at MATC, they may choose to take healthcare-related courses and/or courses that can be applied toward an associate degree.

Operating in the newly built Journal Cafe, students in our elective Coffee Cafe Course rotate through four hands-on learning modules: Business, Marketing, Research & Development, and Production. Working in groups, the students spend three weeks devoted to each learning module, exposing them to all aspects of running a business, from beverage and menu creation to the creation and distribution of promotional materials.

At both Veritas and Tenor High Schools, once students complete their high school requirements – and before they embark on their next step – they share their stories and aspirations for the future in a final presentation we call JOG, or, Justification Of Graduation, which has been designated a Character.org Promising Practice at Tenor. Students present to a panel representing their teachers, peers, family, and community members about their background and influences, their plans for the future, how they’ve prepared to achieve those goals, as well as an important social issue they care about.