Milwaukee’s Tenor High School Brews New Opportunities for College and Career Readiness February 13, 2026

In downtown Milwaukee, the air in the historic Journal Sentinel building no longer carries the scent of newsprint; instead, it’s filled with the aroma of espresso and the hum of 3D printers. Now home to the Journal Square campus of Tenor High School, a public charter school operated by nonprofit Seeds of Health, the facility has been transformed from an aging home of the local newspaper to a state-of-the-art learning environment. By blending traditional classroom environments with flexible learning labs and unique opportunities for experiential learning, the school has been designed specifically to ensure that young people in Milwaukee don’t just study for the future, but gain the hands-on experience needed to thrive in college and high-demand careers.

“Everything we’ve done since opening the Journal Square campus has been designed to offer better opportunities for our students,” says Seeds of Health CEO Jodi Weber. “Whether that’s to go to college after they graduate, to earn a certificate in the trades, or to find another form of employment where they can succeed, we really want our kids to stay in the City of Milwaukee and be able to build their lives here.”

In 2021, Seeds of Health leveraged a $5.4 million loan from IFF to renovate the south half of the 58,860-square-foot facility and open its doors to 200 students. Since then, the school has continued to upgrade the campus to ensure the infrastructure supports its now 340 students as they follow their ambitions and contribute to Milwaukee’s future. The first step in that process began in 2023 when the school opened an “innovation lab” on the ground floor of the previously unused north side of the facility. Equipped with 3D printers, laser cutters, vinyl printers, and vacuum thermoforming machines, the lab supports coursework in digital electronics, engineering design, biomedical science, coding, and other STEM fields. Having intentionally located the Journal Square campus just down the street from Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC), the completion of the innovation lab represented a significant step toward aligning the high school’s curriculum with that of the local community college.

In doing so, Seeds of Health deepened the impact of Tenor High School’s “3+1” dual certification model, which enables the school’s students to take three years of rigorous high school classes before enrolling at MATC for their senior year. This model ensures that students graduate with a certificate in a trade or with a technical diploma, ready for the workforce; continue their studies at MATC in pursuit of an associate degree; or transfer credits earned at MATC to a four-year college or university.

“We spent time thinking through how we wanted to use the north side of the Journal Square facility and determined that the innovation lab was the best use of the space on the ground floor,” says Weber. “Part of what informed the decision was looking at the class offerings at MATC and wanting to provide the foundational learning, and the equipment, that will give our students the largest head start possible as they pursue certifications and college credits with MATC during their senior year.”

Brewing the next phase of growth

Building on the success of the innovation lab, a $2.7 million loan from IFF closed in May 2025 is helping to facilitate the next phase of the school’s growth, which will increase enrollment capacity to 500 students by the fall of 2028. In addition to enabling the buildout of three new classrooms, an expanded cafeteria, and additional administration offices, the loan helped make possible a new coffee café that has already proven to be a powerful tool for students to gain hands-on experience as entrepreneurs.

Launched in 2023 with a folding table and a French press in the gymnasium at Tenor High School’s Cathedral Square campus, the coffee café concept was the result of a teacher’s desire to help a student in the school’s special education program more meaningfully engage in the school experience. Quickly taking off, what began with a few students serving simple coffee drinks soon evolved into a major initiative designed to foster collaboration among students and equip them with real-world skills.

By the end of the 2023-24 school year, the fledgling venture moved into a permanent, custom-built kitchen space in the Cathedral Square gym, complete with professional equipment and beans provided through a partnership with Milwaukee-based Stone Creek Coffee. With the permanent infrastructure in place to support the café, the program was formalized and became an elective course where students have the opportunity to rotate through specialized modules in business, marketing, research and development, and production.

Seeing the positive impact of the coffee café at Cathedral Square, Seeds of Health used a portion of IFF’s most recent loan to expand the concept by building a dedicated café at the Journal Square campus. Opened in October 2025, the Journal Square café is staffed by 25 students per semester and operates during the first period of the school day. Like a traditional coffee shop, students utilize a point-of-sale system, with their peers in other classes able to secure passes to purchase drinks. Beyond the campus walls, students also manage community pop-up events for a flat fee of $25 to $50, gaining additional experience in logistics and customer service.

Beyond providing the café’s “staff” with valuable professional experience, the café has yielded practical benefits schoolwide, like a measurable reduction in tardiness because of students’ desire to visit the café at the start of the school day. The café also serves as a model for inclusivity, with students with disabilities able to fully participate in the café’s operation and learn alongside their peers.

“It’s hard to overstate the value of the skills that students are learning in the café, and it brings me an incredible amount of joy to see what our kids are learning and the way they’re working together in an inclusive setting,” says Weber. “We’re very fortunate to be able to offer this program, and we’re excited about its potential to continue growing and evolving so that more of our students can participate.”

Completing the launchpad

In the coming years, the reinvention of the Journal Square campus will continue as Seeds of Health moves forward with an ambitious plan to activate the remaining unused portions of the facility. Next month, work will begin on a project to add another new classroom, a science suite with state-of-the-art equipment, a senior seminar space where students can gather when they return to the campus from MATC, and a corridor that will enable the use of a new staircase.

Once that’s completed, Seeds of Health will embark on the final phase of expansion at the campus, which will create a “culinary career lab” and culinary classroom. Equipped with commercial appliances, the new space will enable classes focused on topics like food science, nutrition, and sanitation, while also producing food items for the campus’ coffee café. The school will utilize the Pro Start curriculum, which is a two-year, industry-backed culinary arts and restaurant management program designed specifically for high school students. Like the innovation lab, the culinary career lab will enable students to explore high-quality vocational pathways that align directly with MATC’s culinary and hospitality offerings.

“What we’re envisioning is not a space for traditional home economics, but a launchpad for careers in the food industry,” explains Weber. “That could mean becoming a chef, but it could also mean becoming a dietician, a food scientist, or any number of similar careers. The food industry is booming in Milwaukee, and the culinary career lab is going to help prepare our students to continue their education at MATC and to secure sustainable jobs in our city.”

By reclaiming the final areas of a building that once chronicled Milwaukee’s daily history, Seeds of Health is using that same space to help students shape their futures. Representing more than just a physical expansion, the reactivation of the building is the completion of Seeds of Health’s vision for an ecosystem of opportunity that provides students not just with diplomas, but the tools they need to succeed in life and drive Milwaukee forward.

Click here to learn about more school projects in Wisconsin supported by IFF