From student to director of education: Karen Tigani appointed HPCDSB director of education

Current Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board superintendent of education Karen Tigani will take on the role of director of education after current director Chris Roehrig retires on Feb. 24, 2025.

By Galen Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Having spent nearly her entire life as either a student of or staff member for the Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board (HPCDSB), current superintendent of education Karen Tigani will soon be promoted to fill the shoes of director of education Chris Roehrig once he retires at the end of February.

Following an announcement earlier this year that Roehrig would retire from his position as of Feb. 24, 2025, the school board announced last week Tigani would be promoted to fill that role.

“I am pleased to announce the appointment of Karen Tigani as the new director of education for the Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board,” chair of the HPCDSB board of trustees Mary Helen Van Loon said in a press release.

“Karen brings to this role an incredible wealth of knowledge, experience and commitment to faith-based education having served in various leadership roles within our school system over the past 25 years. She is an extremely vibrant, competent, faith-filled leader who will champion the goals of our 2024-2027 strategic plan, On Fire with the Spirit. Her joyful witness to her faith and her steadfast commitment to student success and wellbeing will serve both as guide and vision for our system.”

Tigani is an accomplished educator who taught English and drama at the secondary level, served as a student-success teacher, vice principal, system-learning coordinator, principal and superintendent. She was a principal at St. Anne’s Catholic Secondary School in Clinton and St. James Catholic Elementary School in Seaforth, and vice principal at St. Michael Catholic Secondary School in Stratford.

As superintendent of education, Tigani currently holds portfolios related to school supervision, faith, French immersion, early years, K-12 literacy, mathematics, multilingual learning, student success, skilled trades, pathways and leadership development among others.

“I feel a really strong sense of vocation and commitment to the Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board,” Tigani said. “I literally started my journey with the board as a kindergarten student and I went through elementary and secondary schools here. When I became a teacher, I started working in our board and I’ve just kind of worked my way throughout my career in a variety of roles, and I just feel that my life and my work has prepared me for this time and place.

“When the job was posted, I really thought about it a lot and reflected and prayed, and I just felt this is the right, next move for me and for the board.”

As a result of her time serving the school board, Tigani says she has built important relationships throughout the board and in local school and parish communities, something she looks forward to prioritizing and continuing to build as director of education.

Looking ahead, she says one of the biggest challenges in her new role is to ensure the board continues to retain and attract staff that are committed to creating the best-possible learning environment for students.

“We are staffed very well and we are very proud of the quality of people who work for our team, but we know we need to continue to stay on top of that, so I think that’s something that will be a really important priority for me; supporting the people that we have, attracting excellent people to come in behind and looking at ways to ensure that we are very, very well-staffed now and into the future,” Tigani said. “Obviously, I will be looking forward to hiring an outstanding superintendent of education. That will be important as I make that transition and support the entire senior-leadership team that we have here.”

Speaking to that transition, Tigani said she is already working with Roehrig on learning the in and outs of the job and she expects, by the time he retires, she will be ready to hit the ground running.

“I really hope that in my leadership I can model and inspire a spirit of leadership among everyone,” Tigani said. “I really believe that we all are leaders wherever we are, and that’s for students and for staff. All of us are leaders and if we adopt a growth mindset, there’s nothing that we can’t do together.”

Tigani is a graduate of St. Jerome’s at the University of Waterloo and earned her Bachelor of Education at Western University and her Masters in Educational Leadership at Niagara University. She is an active member of her parish in Stratford and is engaged in leadership with many organizations in the community and provincially.