District budget cuts aren’t new to this Jefferson County School District outdoor enrichment program.
Beginning in 1957, the Outdoor Lab program offers a mountain learning experience for Jeffco students.
About 5,000 sixth graders and 1,000 high school students attend the 55, week-long Outdoor Labs every year. The program ties into the academic curriculum of the 35 middle schools in Jeffco. The high school students serve in leadership roles.
Held at campuses on Mount Blue Sky and Windy Peak, the program has become a multigenerational “rite of passage” for Jeffco students, according to the Outdoor Lab Foundation’s Executive Director Bryan Martin.
“It started out with the simple intuition that getting outdoors is good for kids, and connecting them with their fellow classmates and teachers in an outdoor setting will be a great bonding experience,” Martin said.
The Foundation is a standalone 501c3 non-profit that supports Jeffco Public Schools Outdoor Lab program. It works in private partnership with Jeffco Schools to help support and resource Outdoor Lab and its programming.
“Supporting the Outdoor Lab program at Jeffco was a very natural fit for me,” Martin said, who has been in the role for five years. “The partnership with the foundation and the School District has been growing and getting stronger all the many years that I’ve been here now.”
The former executive director of Big City Mountaineers, which provided free and fully outfitted backpacking trips and expeditionary learning opportunities for under-resourced youth, Martin has worked in conservation, outdoor recreation, public land advocacy and youth development non-profits his entire career.
The day-to-day and week-to-week operations of Outdoor Lab are funded through the Jeffco School District budget. The Foundation provides further resources, not only in cash but in volunteers, to support aspects of the Outdoor Lab program.
Over the past five years, The Outdoor Lab Foundation contributed roughly $1.8 million, which went back to Jefferson County Public Schools, supporting aspects of the program including tuition assistance, the internship program, volunteers and capital investment efforts to maintain campuses.
Recently the Foundation moved their headquarters to a remnant space in a Jeffco admin building, saving them $20,000 a year in overhead costs.
Martin is aware of the Jeffco budget crisis but doesn’t believe it will affect the Outdoor Lab Program.
“I recognize that [budget cuts] are real and know that Outdoor Lab’s been one of those institutions that have been threatened by previous budget cuts,” Martin said. “The Foundation has been focused on ensuring that we’re advocating for the program, developing great partnerships with the program and continuing to make the economics work for Jeffco, such that it remains a rite of passage and an institution that more and more sixth graders can enjoy here at Jeffco.”
Martin is currently working with principals in the district to match their curriculums with the Outdoor Lab program for the upcoming school year. The schedule for Outdoor Lab is on track and will have a typical expected attendance, Martin said.
“I’m very proud of the Program,” Martin said. “I think that’s why the School District is working hard and working with the Foundation to make sure that we are able to provide it for future generations of students, regardless of the ups and downs of the budgets that have been flowing over the many years that the School District has been in operation.”
Martin hopes to further develop the Outdoor Lab high school leader program, which provides on the ground leadership and career development opportunities for high schoolers who have a passion for conservation and environmental education. The Foundation will continue to align with Jeffco middle school curriculums as they evolve.
“[The Outdoor Lab curriculum] has become more dynamic and more rigorous over the years as schooling has grown and evolved and become more rigorous,” Martin said. “As I look at the landscape across the country, there are few programs like this that exist for a public school system.”
Although field trips, camps and outdoor programs exist in other school districts across the country, Martin and the Outdoor Lab Foundation believe unique growth and leadership opportunities can occur when students get out of the traditional classroom and into the mountains during their week at Outdoor Lab.
