Meet the Bankord Family

We began our family in Rockford, IL, moved to Denver, CO for a short time, and then decided to move back to Illinois ten years ago to make Wheaton our permanent home. We had heard such positive things about the people, the culture, and the schools available for kids and felt like it was an ideal spot to raise our family, even though we had very few relationships in the area.

When we arrived in town, we did all the things that young families typically do to get acclimated: soccer Saturdays, time at the parks, indoor bounce house places to entertain little kids in the winter, sent our young boys to local public schools. Eventually, we started meeting more WCGS families and heard wonderful things about the school, the leadership, and the families that were part of the community. Seeds were being planted and the exploration began.

While we had plenty of long days when the boys were young toddlers, the adage of time moving fast when raising kids is true. We’ve always tried to slow down enough to fully process and pray through the most important decisions affecting our goal to raise strong, mature, well-rounded, and Christ-centered men. We spent many “post-bedtime” evenings discussing the idea of WCGS for our three boys.

As we prayed through the decision, we consulted some mentors who had graduated all four of their kids from the school. It did not take them long to say, “We can relate to the difficulty in making the decision. But we promise you will have so many occasions when you will be grateful you made the investment. We call them tuition moments”.

Since we made the transition in the Fall of 2021, we have had too many “tuition moments” to count. Moments like our first orientation night when the teachers explained their carefully designed curriculum plan with a great deal of intentionality around helping each student understand their unique, God-given design. Moments like unprompted dinner conversations as a family around the chapel topic or a Scripture memory verse or the life lessons the boys were learning from godly teachers. Moments like our oldest son participating as a 6th grader in student-led Bible studies led by 8th graders who are pouring into underclassmen and teaching them how to love reading their Bible. Moments like seeing the school’s most senior leadership serving students and families every day at school drop off and pick up, helping direct traffic with a smile and encouraging words for everyone. The welcoming atmosphere on our first day, the sports programs, the commitment to academic excellence, the fun events for families, the opportunities to get involved as parents, the friendly conversations in the parking lot – the list goes on.

Our boys are thriving in every way, and WCGS could not be a better partner for us as parents. The “tuition moments” keep stacking up. We recognize the blessing it is to be in a situation where WCGS is an option for us as a family. Choosing to send our kids to WCGS has caused us to re-orient our priorities in life, but we could not be more grateful for God leading us in this direction.