Supporters of the Arlington Outdoor Lab program at times have had to fight to maintain funding in Arlington Public Schools’ annual budget process.
This year, however, there are smiles all around.
“Very happy” is how Arlington Outdoor Education Association president Michael Maleski said the organization feels in response to the budget proposal made jointly by Superintendent Francisco Durán and the School Board.
“This is terrific news for Arlington students,” he added in an email to the organization’s supporters.
The association owns the 225-acre Outdoor Lab tract in Fauquier County, and has leased it to the school system since the 1960s for educational programs held throughout the year and during the summer.
The $845 million budget proposal calls for $1,014,208 in Outdoor Lab spending for the coming fiscal year, up from $826,116 in fiscal 2025. Much of that increase (just under $100,000) is due to a change to where in the budget bus transportation for students to the facility is reported.
Staffing for the coming fiscal year will remain unchanged at 6.75 full-time-equivalent positions. One facility-assistant position was upgraded to a coordinator post over the past year, which will increase staffing costs beyond typical year-over-year growth.
Maleski said his organization appreciated funding to continue operations in the midst of a “tough budget year, with hard choices to be made.”
On another Outdoor Lab issue, Maleski told ARLnow that he expects to be able to release information “very soon” about an effort to purchase a large adjoining tract of land to augment the association’s holdings.
The public will have its chance to see the Outdoor Lab during its annual spring open house, slated for Sunday, May 4.
The facility will hold its 60th anniversary next year.
Electrical work at Career Center project to cost more: School Board members on April 10 are slated to use about $360,000 in contingency funds to pay higher than expected electrical-equipment costs for the new Arlington Career Center (Grace Hopper Center) building.
The funding will cover extra costs associated with electrical conductors, which bring electricity from Dominion Energy’s main lines into the school.
“The dollars we had estimated were not quite where they should be,” Jeffrey Chambers, the school system’s director of design and construction, said at the March 27 School Board meeting.
The extra funds will go to the project’s general contractor, Whiting-Turner. Dominion, which ordinarily would be responsible for installing the equipment, asked that it be done by the contractor in order to meet timetables sought by the school system.
That change will not impact the total expense of installing the equipment.
“We would pay Dominion to do it or we would pay a contractor,” Chambers said.
Once the $359,827 cost is subtracted, the contingency fund for the $180 million project will stand at about $6.35 million.
“Construction is going very well — things are moving ahead,” Chamber said. “There’s not a lot of [additional] surprises we should be finding.”
Per-student cost to rise slightly: Arlington school leaders anticipate year-over-year per-student costs will rise just 0.5% under the proposed fiscal 2026 budget now working its way toward adoption.
The estimated cost for each of Arlington’s roughly 28,000 students is $25,307 for the coming school year, up from $25,175 in the current year.
Arlington’s figure still may end up leading Northern Virginia in per-student spending, but will be far less than the 15% increase that initially was presented in budget documents.
The figure on Page 106 of the budget proposal reported the per-student cost as $28,981 for fiscal 2026. Andy Hawkins, the school system’s assistant superintendent of finance and management services, told ARLnow that the figure was a mistake caused by a faulty calculation.
“We apologize for this error and any confusion that may have occurred as a result,” he said in response to an April 1 inquiry.
To calculate the estimated per-student cost, Arlington school officials used the formula employed by the Washington Area Boards of Education, which each December compares costs among school divisions across Northern Virginia.
The actual cost-per-student figures for the 2025-26 school year won’t be known until after Sept. 30, when Virginia school districts make an official count of student population.
