HISTORY

The Community School Collaborative (CSC) is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit educational organization founded in 2018 that serves the students at Sleeping Giant Middle School (SGMS) in Livingston, MT.

In 2017, Superintendent of Livingston Public Schools Don Viegut hosted a Collective Impact meeting for Park County nonprofit leaders and citizens. Dr. Yvonne Brutger, Dr. Barbara Moore Prager and then SGMS Principal Dr. Lynne Scalia were connected at that meeting and began discussions as to how to involve the community in mentoring its youth.

At the same time, SGMS faculty submitted a report to the School Board on best practices of the highest performing middle schools across the U.S. These practices had been shown to build confident, self-directed students who remained engaged with school from middle school through high school. The Livingston School Board, acting on the findings of this report, approved curriculum changes and a SGMS calendar that included seven Fridays (Cougar Fridays) during the school year specifically designed for enrichment programming.

Community School Collaborative was founded by Brutger, Prager and Scalia to deliver this programming in conjunction with the Livingston School District. CSC has evolved over the past 4 years, with Cougar Career Days, which replaced Cougar Fridays, now being held on regularly scheduled school days.