Garden-based learning nonprofit Life Lab faces budget cuts, staff reductions following PVUSD contract termination 

Life Lab, a Santa Cruz nonprofit with more than four decades of garden-based learning expertise, is scaling back its programming significantly and making staff reductions after losing major funding sources, including an expected $2.2 million 2024-25 contract with Pajaro Valley Unified School District. 

The organization is known nationally for its garden-based learning curriculum and training for garden educators. Over the past decade, Life Lab and PVUSD have partnered to bring Life Lab instructors to develop gardens and educational programs at the district’s elementary schools. The program has been popular with students and teachers, who say it encourages students to learn how to cook, try new vegetables and appreciate the importance of gardening and farming.

The organization is “undergoing significant changes related to programming and staffing,” said Whitney Cohen, Life Lab’s education director, in a written public statement provided to Lookout on Tuesday, after several requests for interviews last week. 

Life Lab “became financially overextended when large contracts ended and philanthropic support for program expansion did not come through,” she wrote. “Working closely with our Board of Directors and consultants, we reduced staff to accommodate for programming changes and the pursuit of promising opportunities.” 

Between Monday and Tuesday, the total staff listed on the Life Lab website was reduced from 36 people to just eight.

Six administrative and support positions were taken down, including co-executive director Don Burgett and interim executive director Maria Mazzenga Avellaneda. Twenty positions were removed under the “partner schools program” staff, most of whom were working at PVUSD schools. Two garden classroom positions were removed as well.

Cohen didn’t immediately respond to questions about which and how many of its total staff positions were reduced due to the funding losses and which programs, in addition to its partnership with PVUSD, would be affected by the changes. She also didn’t immediately respond regarding the status of Burgett’s position.

Neither Life Lab’s longtime co-executive director, Burgett, nor former co-executive director Judit Camacho have responded to requests for comment. 

The cuts and reorganization follow recent leadership changes. Interim executive director Mazzenga Avellaneda took on her position this spring after Camacho stepped down, following five years at the helm.

While Life Lab board members Lookout reached wouldn’t comment publicly about the staffing changes, Lookout learned that the board is trying to get better oversight and assess the financial status of the organization. 

“As Life Lab’s direct-service contract with PVUSD schools concludes and our organization scales down, we are shifting our focus back to Life Lab’s 45+ years of national impact as a train-the-trainer for garden educators,” wrote Cohen.

Life Lab instructors have used their curriculum to collaborate with PVUSD elementary teachers, integrating science lessons from the garden into the classrooms. The instructors teach students about garden care-taking, nutrition and cooking. 

This year, Pajaro Valley Unified School District officials, bracing for their own financial challenges, decided not to renew a contract with Life Lab. In 2021, the district and Life Lab had entered a three-year contract that scaled up the program each year. That first year, the district invested $1.1 million to support nine instructors at seven elementary schools impacting 3,900 students. This past fall, the district invested $1.9 million to support 15 instructors at 13 schools impacting 7,400 students. Their goal in fall 2024: 18 instructors at 16 schools with a $2.2 million investment from the district. 

In addition to the district investment, per the agreement, Life Lab aimed to raise and contribute $350,000 to the program. 

As it faced this year’s financial outlook, with a shrinking budget largely due to declining enrollment and other financial strains, the district this year made $4 million in cuts. That number is estimated to grow to $16 million for the 2025-26 academic year, according to former interim superintendent Murry Schekman.

Schekman, who served the district through April 30, said the district’s decision to scale back the Life Lab program was purely financial. He said ending the contract is a loss as many students in the district community loved the program. 

“The money ran dry,” he said. 

In Cohen’s statement, she wrote that while the contract with PVUSD ends this summer, the district will continue to integrate school gardens but not during the regular school day. The district is instead integrating garden-based learning in its after-school curriculum and will be hiring credentialed full-time teachers to lead after-school garden programs. 

On Friday, the district posted 10 positions on EdJoin, the education job board, for agriscience teachers for the upcoming academic year. It is unclear how much budget savings PVUSD is achieving, given the replacement of the Life Lab contract with the new hires. PVUSD officials have not commented on that question or others related to the contract termination. 

With offices located at the UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology, Life Lab was founded in 1979 with the creation of its first school garden at Green Acres Elementary in 1978. Its founders then established Life Lab as a nonprofit organization in 1982 – the same year it created its first garden-based learning curriculum. Over time, the organization has developed programs for training garden educators nationally, hosting workshops and student field trips at its garden classroom located at UCSC and more recently over the past decades expanded its impact to PVUSD schools. 

As the organization appears to be going back to its roots, it is worth noting the comments of Burgett and Life Lab’s director of programs and partnerships, John Fisher. We “don’t want to fall into the trap of creating a program in times where funding is available and letting it fall into disarray when funding is unavailable,” Fisher and Burgett told the Santa Cruz Sentinel in 2018. 

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