Interview with La Citadelle International Academy of Arts & Science PARENT, Janice Ilkay
Janice is the parent of two alumni of La Citadelle. She shares her reasons for selecting, and for staying with, the school. Janice and her kids appreciated the school’s bilingual program, the small class sizes, emphasis on academic excellence, and the caring atmosphere of the school. Janice also liked having the option to be involved with the school events.
Highlights from the interview
Both my kids loved the school, they thrived from the small classes, and the school environment was what they needed. There are a few times where we talked about switching to maybe a public school. Neither of them wanted to leave. They really enjoyed the school. So we stayed until the end.
My kids still have very good memories of their teachers at La Citadelle. They appreciated the teachers. They really enjoyed their academic learning, as well as their experiences outside the academics, like the various school events.
I felt that I could very comfortably leave my children here at the school, and know they would be well taken care of. The teachers here were, I thought, amazing. They were very approachable.
The small class sizes are also very important for us.
One thing that surprised me was how well the school has adapted and grown from when we started. There's definitely been improvements every year. Not a lot of schools do that. A lot of schools are stagnant. I think the school that tries to improve the curriculum, the facilities, the programs they have. And that's, I think, a good thing.
La Citadelle has successfully combined academic excellence with a caring atmosphere, although those two things don't always go together, they do at this school. For me, the most prominent features of the school are its excellence in education, and the caring, and the compassion. Those are big things that the school promotes and practices.
The school offers you that ability to know what your child was doing and to be involved in the school things. The parents at La Citadelle were involved and interested in what their children were doing at school. In public schools, you typically get a parent-teacher interview once a year, which is a 10-minute interview, and that is it. With La Citadelle, the fact that parents can get involved in the school life was also important for me. I was very involved in the parents support committee, and worked quite closely with a lot of the staff, in organizing events. So, for me, it was important that I could see how they were doing well at the school. Everyone, the teachers and staff, was really easy to work with.
My daughter used to hate presentations, but because of her experience at La Citadelle, she now excels at it, and she looks forward to doing it, which surprised me. I was really surprised and happy about that. When she started university, again, it was mandatory to do presentations in a lot of her classes.
My daughter was also very happy with her academic marks, both here at La Citadelle, and at university. She did quite well, in a lot of the courses that she took. I think she had the foundation here that helped her with that.
I wanted my kids to have a good academic foundation, to do whatever they want to in life. We found that at La Citadelle.
People can talk about the school, but if you come see for yourself, you'll definitely want to come here. The best way to assess the school is to come during the school hours, see the kids doing their work, see the teachers doing their work, and you get the atmosphere for the school. You'll get to see what the school is really like. I think that's the best way.
