Situated along the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the School Board territory consists of nine Anglophone villages and four francophone villages, scattered along 460 kilometres of coastline from Kegaska to Blanc-Sablon including Port-Menier (Anticosti Island). Their respective population varies between 100 and 1 000 inhabitants.
The School Board has a school enrolment of approximately 570 students. It offers general education services to the youth sector for pre-school, primary, secondary levels and also literacy and secondary general education to the Adult Education sector.
On April 14, 1967, the National Assembly of the Province of Québec sanctioned Bill 41, instituting the Commission scolaire de la Côte-Nord du Golfe St-Laurent. This school board, "unlike any other", directed by an administrator, would become responsible for education in fifteen communities, spread out from Kegaska to Blanc Sablon, a territory of 460 kilometers long and not connected by the Québec Provincial road network. Bill 41 created the first "unified" school board in the Province of Québec, serving a French, English and Amerindian population of Catholic and Protestant religion and giving courses from Kindergarten to Secondary inclusively.
On June 18, 1975, the name of the Commission scolaire de la Côte-Nord du Golfe St-Laurent was changed by order in council for the Commission scolaire du Littoral.
The territory of Anticosti Island was annexed to the Commission scolaire du Littoral by Bill 48 which was passed on June 18, 1976.
Following inter-governmental agreements, the Amerindians acquired their school autonomy on the St. Augustine River Reservation on July 1, 1990, and on the La Romaine Reserve on July 1, 1991. However, the school board maintained services in these two communities so as to serve the non-Indian population.
The School Board holds a special status in the sense that it is managed by an administrator (who is named by the Lieutenant Governor in Council) who replaces the school commissioners and the director general. He exercises his powers by means of ordinances, of which a copy is automatically transmitted to the Minister who decides to accept it or to reject it in whole or in part.
Moreover, the Commission scolaire du Littoral is characterized by the fact that it is not classified as a linguistic school board.