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The Outdoor Lab Foundation is focused on the support and sustainability of the Outdoor Lab Schools for Jefferson County. It funds building and site repairs, assists local school fundraising efforts, and helps the lab schools fund important programs and projects that enhance both Outdoor Lab School historical sites and its students. With more than 6,000 students served each year and well over 350,000 alumni of the over 54 year program, Outdoor Lab is the longest continually running outdoor education program in the western United States. Focused on hands-on science learning, Outdoor Lab teaches stewardship of oneself, others and the world around us. Outdoor Lab has become a rite of passage for 6th graders in Jefferson County for 55 years. A $5,000 donation would go directly to a wastewater treatment system at the Mount Evans site. "Everything we do at the Lab Schools is to improve the student experience or make the sites more capable of sustaining themselves," explained executive director Shannon Hancock.

Under a sustainability plan tentatively approved by the Jefferson County Board of Education, the Outdoor Lab schools will be saved for the 2012-2013 school year.

Every participating school will be charged a fee that will be based on its free and reduced lunch percentage; it will be up to the school and its community to raise the money needed to send its students to Outdoor Lab. Some fundraising will benefit each participating student by crediting her/his Outdoor Lab account. Check with individual schools for their fundraising activities and student costs.

As they hiked through the mountains near Bailey, Lauren Barnhill, a high school intern, picked up a pink-white rock and offered it to Cat Howard, 12. What is this, Barnhill asked. “Quartz and pink feldspar,” Howard replied, without missing a step. The group soon stopped for water and a short lesson, as Audrey Urie, a student leader from Pomona High School, explained to the 11- and 12-year-old hikers why one mountain side was full of trees and the other rocky and barren.

“Our kids, many of them haven’t left home for more than a couple of days,” said Calae Quillin, a sixth-grade teacher at Arvada’s Little Elementary School. “They grow up here, academically and emotionally. They come up here as one student and child and leave a totally different student.”

Four months after Jefferson County voters approved a $39 million mill-levy override to prevent a series of dramatic school budget cuts, sixth-graders are arriving by the busload every Monday at Windy Peak and its sister campus on Mount Evans. Outdoor Lab was one of many programs that faced elimination had the 3A ballot initiative failed in November 2012.

As part of the sustainability plan, fees were increased this school year for the first time in years, from $199 per student to a tiered system of $100-$350 based on each school’s percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-cost lunch. The annual cost of operating the Outdoor Lab schools is $1.9 million. School fees will continue to make up most of the budget, or about $1.5 million in 2013-2014.

Moving forward, the foundation is focused on strengthening the program in hopes of avoiding future crises, she said. One project being sponsored this year is the installation of wireless Internet at Mount Evans, which should make the site more attractive for business retreats.