The Five
Tracks
Your student selects one track in Grade 9. Every year of the curriculum, every subject, every deliverable, every milestone, is built around their work in that track.
← Back to OverviewThe track is not a theme. It is the domain your student is actually practicing in.
The track is the domain your student is actually practicing in, the real work they are doing with real people, producing real results, across four years. Choosing the right track matters.
A student in the Rodeo and Western Track is developing a western enterprise or rodeoing as their project alongside the full academic curriculum. A student in Launch a Business is building an actual business, not writing a plan about one. A student in Community Impact is designing and executing initiatives that produce documented, measurable change. A student in Build a House is working at the professional construction and architectural standard. A student in Design Your Own has a genuine project that does not fit the other four tracks but is real enough and serious enough to support four years of development.
The five tracks cover the full range of western life and enterprise. Read each one. The right track will be obvious.
The Rodeo and Western Track is built for students who are already in the western world. A student in this track might be training a rope horse prospect while developing a business plan and a training protocol alongside the scientific study of equine performance. A student who competes might be building the performance science of their athletic development alongside the economics of a rodeoing. A young stock contractor might be learning to document what their operation produces and developing the long-term stewardship plan for the land it depends on.
The western tradition runs through every unit. American History in this track covers the forces that shaped the contemporary American West, the water law, the land policy, the economics of the livestock industry, the cultural tradition of the arena. The oral history interview in Grade 11 requires finding a practitioner with thirty or more years in the western domain or rodeo. The tradition placement essay asks the student to name specifically where their practice sits in that lineage, what they have received from the tradition, and what they are adding to it.
The science in this track covers the biology of performance, the ecological dimensions of western land management, and the environmental science of the land the student's enterprise or practice depends on. The mathematics covers the financial architecture of a western enterprise including the rodeo road, from the first-year baseline to the four-year causal model with documented assumptions and multiple scenarios.
A student in the Launch a Business Track is not writing a business plan for a class. They are building an actual business, and every year of the curriculum advances it. In Grade 9 they establish the foundation: the market, the problem, the first customers, the financial baseline. In Grade 10 they develop the analytical depth, causal models, audience research, practitioner-standard financial architecture. In Grade 11 they bring it to scale: systematic research, a graduation-scale design, the gap between where the business is and where excellence requires it to be. In Grade 12 they document four years honestly and present what the business has become to a domain expert who can evaluate it.
The writing, mathematics, science, and history in this track are all applied to the enterprise. The financial modeling is real, every calculation shown, every assumption documented. The advocacy submission in Grade 12 goes to a real recipient. The oral history interview is with a practitioner who has been doing serious work in this industry for thirty or more years.
The Challenge Point in Grade 9 or 10, when something in the business genuinely fails or stalls, is one of the most important experiences in the track. A student who can analyze a real business failure at the root-cause level and redesign accordingly is developing analytical capacity that most business owners spend a decade acquiring.
Community Impact students are not doing volunteer hours. They are designing and executing initiatives that produce documented, measurable change in a specific community, and they are learning to analyze what actually caused that change with the rigor of a public health researcher or a social sector leader.
In Grade 9, the student establishes the community need, the baseline, and the first intervention. Every year, the research deepens, the audience analysis sharpens, and the scale of the impact grows. The science in this track covers the behavioral and environmental mechanisms at work in the community. The mathematics covers causal inference, what the data actually shows versus what it appears to show. The history covers the forces that shaped the community's current condition.
The advocacy submission in Grade 12 goes to a real public recipient, a city council member, a public health department, a nonprofit board, a state agency. The graduation presentation is delivered to an audience of community stakeholders and domain experts who can evaluate the impact record honestly. The scientific contribution statement asks the student to make a specific, defensible claim about what four years of documented community work contributes to what is known about effective intervention in this domain.
A student in the Build a House Track is not doing shop class. They are learning to read, draw, and think at the professional construction and architectural standard, and they are developing the business, environmental, and community dimensions of what it means to build in a specific place over time.
The project in Grade 9 begins with foundational design: understanding the site, the materials, the structure, and the relationship between the built environment and the land it occupies. Every year, the complexity increases. The architectural drawings advance. The financial modeling covers a full construction budget with all assumptions documented. The environmental science covers the land, the water, and the regenerative practices that serious stewardship requires.
The American History content in this track covers the built environment of the American West, the architecture, the land use patterns, the community development history, and the forces that shape construction practice in specific western regions. The oral history interview is with a licensed contractor, architect, or master builder with thirty or more years of experience in the domain.
Design Your Own is not the default track for students who could not find a fit elsewhere. It is for students who have a genuine project in a specific domain that is real enough, serious enough, and rich enough to support four years of full academic development.
A Design Your Own student might be developing a serious musical practice with an enterprise dimension. They might be building a scientific research project with a real domain community. They might be developing a specific form of specialized agriculture, a creative production company, a professional athletic career in a discipline the other tracks do not cover, or a serious technical craft at the professional practitioner level.
The Design Your Own track requires the most from the facilitator in Grade 9, because the scope, standards, and domain expert community must be identified and established from scratch. The oral history interview requires identifying a thirty-or-more-year practitioner in a domain that may not have obvious professional associations. The graduation presentation requires a domain expert who has genuine standing in a field the student has defined themselves.
Families considering this track should contact Tenney Training before the Grade 9 year begins. The conversation about whether the project is strong enough to carry four years of curriculum is one of the most important conversations in the enrollment process.
Ready to see how it works?
The four-year structure, the Lane progression, the Blueprint, and what the facilitator role actually requires.
