Character development
Practicing honesty, respect, and responsibility in a small group with adult guidance.
For school & community leaders
What is Cub Scouting?
A plain-language briefing for administrators, executives, and civic leaders: what the program is, how it is run and supervised, and where it lines up with goals schools are already working on.
The program
A structured after-school activity, run by trained, background-checked parent volunteers.
Cub Scouting is a program of Scouting America for children in Kindergarten–5th grade. Boys and girls welcome. Kids meet in small, same-grade groups called dens, and the whole pack gathers periodically for a larger meeting. Every adult who runs a meeting is a registered, trained volunteer. Every child in Scouting must be escorted by their parent or guardian at every event. There is never a moment at a Cub Scout event when a child's parent or guardian isn't present.
The six grade levels each carry a rank name, so a program built for a kindergartner looks and feels different from one built for a fifth grader. Social-Emotional Learning is at the core of each program:
Lion · KindergartenAn adult partner sits in the den for every Lion meeting. So a five-year-old practices the very first group skills, waiting a turn and sharing a grown-up’s attention, with their own grown-up right there beside them.
Tiger · 1st gradeDen meetings run to a routine: an opening, a job to do, a closing. Inside a structure that doesn’t shift week to week, a first grader learns to say what they need and to ask for help.
Wolf · 2nd gradeCharacter & Leadership is one of the six Adventures every rank requires. For a second grader that means working with the partner they got, not the partner they wanted, and finishing the part they said they would do.
Bear · 3rd gradeThird graders take on a service project for the required Citizenship Adventure. The people who benefit are people they will never meet. That is the point.
Webelos · 4th gradeTwenty elective Adventures, and Webelos are the ones who pick. Choosing one, planning it, then seeing it through is goal-setting a fourth grader owns rather than receives.
Arrow of Light · 5th gradeFifth grade is built around the crossover to Scouts BSA. They lead parts of a meeting for the younger dens, then hand the job off to whoever comes next.
Building stakeholder engagement
Bibb County School District · 2023–2028 strategic plan
if we build stakeholder engagement of students, parents staff and community, and strengthen staff effectiveness to drive teaching and learning, we will maximize student achievement.
A Cub Scout pack can help meet that goal. It gives families a standing, year-round reason to show up, and its own members organize and pay for it.
Why schools partner with us
Four aims a school can get behind.
Cub Scouting is organized around four aims that line up with what schools already work on: character, citizenship, fitness, and leadership. Kids learn by doing, families stay involved, and the program is built around consistent attendance rather than tryouts or cuts.
Citizenship training
Civic habits, learned by doing them: flag ceremonies, service projects, caring for the neighborhood.
Personal fitness
Age-appropriate physical activity built into meetings and outdoor events.
Leadership development
Kids take turns leading parts of a meeting, in a structure sized for their age.
Complementing the plan
Where this lines up with what schools are already working on.
Engaged families, already vetted
Every Cub Scout is enrolled by an adult, and the pack only runs because those adults take registered roles: den leader, treasurer, event coordinator, driver. Every year each one is trained and passes a criminal background check.
Practice in the skills behind Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)
We aren't a curriculum and we don't replace one. What a den gives a child is repeated practice in a small, same-grade group: taking a turn leading, working with a partner who was not their first choice, finishing something difficult, and being accountable to other kids for it.
Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision-making. Those are the five competencies schools teach every day, and in a den they are just the ordinary business of a meeting rather than a unit we teach.
One more adult who knows the child
A den leader sees the same eight or ten kids month after month, for years, and has a standing reason to talk to their parents. That is one more adult who knows a child well enough to notice when something is off.
Multi-tiered supports depend on someone catching a problem early. More adults who know a child outside the school day means more chances that somebody does.
Who we are
Pack 170, specifically.
Cub Scout Pack 170 is Macon's local Cub Scout pack, part of the Central Georgia Council of Scouting America. We're chartered by Highland Hills Baptist Church, where the pack meets. It's run entirely by volunteers. There is no paid staff.
Pack meetings happen roughly once a month on Tuesdays at 6:30 PM, at Highland Hills Baptist Church. Member families don't need any connection to the chartering church to join. The church graciously gives us the space to meet.
What we need
A table, an opportunity, and that is about it.
- A table at an open house or family night
One table, staffed by vetted, trained parents.
- A few minutes on a PTO agenda, civic meeting, or similar
Optional, and short. Three minutes is plenty.
- Permission to post a flyer
On a bulletin board or in a newsletter, sized and formatted however the organization prefers.
That is the whole list. No room, no budget, no staff time.
Youth protection, at a glance
Every registered adult completes Scouting America's Safeguarding Youth Training before serving with youth, renews it every year, and passes a criminal background check. Two-deep leadership means at least two registered adults are present at every activity, and one-on-one contact between an adult and a youth is prohibited. Parents can observe any part of the program, any time. Suspected abuse goes to law enforcement; it is never handled internally. Nothing on this website is members-only, and every contact channel reaches multiple adults.
Scouting America's national general liability program covers chartered units, so a school hosting our table is not underwriting our coverage. We can provide a certificate, our training records, and the names of the adults who would staff the table, before anyone asks for them.
Invite Pack 170 to a family night.
When a school has an open house, a family night, or a few minutes on a PTO agenda, Pack 170 would like to be there. The pack brings the table, the adults, and the paperwork.
Looking to enroll your own child instead?
See how to join Pack 170