There were few snow-covered ski resorts in Turkey for Jennifer Dussault to practise skiing. She also lacked extra-curricular activities at her private school in Istanbul.

Jennifer and William Dussault on the front steps of boarding school Ashbury College in Ottawa.

Jennifer and William Dussault on the front steps of boarding school Ashbury College in Ottawa.

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Her father, Canadian Colonel Mark Dussault, was posted there three years ago to work with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Her mother, Marie, wanted to stay with her husband, yet the family also wanted to give Jennifer the best high-school experience possible.

The family's solution was to send their daughter back to Canada to a boarding school.

Now 17, Jennifer is a two-year veteran of Ashbury College in Ottawa and is preparing to mentor her brother William, 13, who will join her this month.

"I was scared when I first went in, but then again, everyone is in the same boat," Jennifer says. "The girls that I met there in [my] first year were all in the same situation because our parents are so far away."

Almost 4,000 students in Canada attend boarding schools, although numbers kept by The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS) do not distinguish between international and Canadian citizens.

At Ashbury, international students now play more of a role in the school's strategic direction than in years past.

There is still an Anglican cathedral on campus. But just outside its wooden doors are six stained-glass windows that show religious symbols from Islam, Judaism and Hinduism, among others.

"We believe the learning environment is enriched when you have students from around the world. So our students in Ottawa benefit from having students in over 30 countries in the classroom," says Tam Matthews, Ashbury's headmaster and former chairman of the Canadian Association of Independent Schools.

"We also believe in teaching global citizenship, diversity, inclusiveness, and we need to prepare our students with 21st century learning skills … with the people they are going to be competing with in the world."

Modern connections on older roots

Parents have sent their children to boarding schools for at least 1,400 years. One of the world's oldest examples is King's School in Canterbury, Britain. Its first class — a monastic one — took place in AD 597.

Boarding schools in Canada similarly formed under the auspices of the church in the late 1800s. Among these were Bishop Strachan School, an independent girls' school located just north of Casa Loma in Toronto, which opened its doors in 1867. Despite her school's history, parents still worry about sending their children to boarding school, says Deryn Lavell, head of Bishop Strachan.

That's why the school's classrooms are lined with Internet connections to let the students stay in touch with their families. She tells worried parents that a status update is never more than a phone call or e-mail message away.

Students also have guidance counsellors, nurses and round-the-clock teachers on hand.

"The kids who come through a boarding experience are really well-prepared," she adds.

"They are able to live on their own and live independently. They have strong study habits when they go to university, and the anecdotal research is they do very well in their first research year. They don't have that 'settling' issue in university since they've already been there."

Little research, big promises

Research from TABS backs up Ms. Lavell's assertions. About 95 per cent of former boarding school students reported they are satisfied or very satisfied with their experience, according to a 2003 telephone survey of 2,700 graduates across North America.

Further, 90 per cent said if they could choose again what school to attend, it would still be a boarding school.

Yet most boarding schools have no longitudinal studies keeping track of graduate outcomes — although many are starting to do that, says Joel Westheimer, a University of Ottawa professor who is part of Democratic Dialogue, a research group that examines educational systems.

Like the Montessori system, there is also little critical literature that compares graduates of boarding schools with graduates of private or even public schools, he said, making it difficult to justify the extra cost that boarding entails.

"Boarding schools are fairly wealthy populations, so basically these are kids — if you put them in a room with a pile of books and you didn't do anything — they would probably learn fine already," Dr. Westheimer adds.

William Dussault and his family feel that he will have a bright future at Ashbury. The budding chemist looks forward to a challenging science curriculum — and making new Canadian friends. "I'm pretty excited, because I've always wanted to go in a real school with teams and stuff like that."

After the number of small private schools he's been to, "now I'm getting used to a real college. I can hardly wait."

Special to The Globe and Mail