John Ulicny will be the next director of the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board (PROVIDED BY WECDSB/University of Windsor)
By Kate Hargreaves
In his three decades in education, John Ulicny has seen it all.
“Or...” he laughs. “You think you’ve seen it all in 34 years.”
Starting his teaching career at the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board (WECDSB) in 1992, the three-time University of Windsor alumnus is set to take over as the board’s director and chief executive officer this August.
“Education goes full circle,” Ulicny (BHK ’91, BEd ‘92, MEd ‘06) says of the changes he has seen throughout his career. “Every government puts their own individual touch on what they would like to see, and technology certainly has an impact.”
From shifts in streaming to de-streaming and back again to the introduction of the internet and email and the retirement of the fax machine, all the way up to the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI), educational practice is always changing.
“You’ve got to stay nimble,” Ulicny says. “You get new curriculum, you get new initiatives that come forward from the Ministry and you have to be able to implement those.”
Key to that implementation in the WECDSB has been a measured and scaffolded approach, Ulicny says.
“We’ve always been under the impression that if you’re going to do things well, you start small and build on that positive success,” he explains.
This strategy has served Ulicny and the board well in expanding skilled trades programs and ensuring safeguards around AI are in place as well as creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for newcomers to Canada and students from a diversity of cultures and backgrounds.
In everything the board is building toward however, Ulicny emphasizes that it is a team endeavour, relying on community engagement and strong networks.
“We rely on our community partners, the partnerships we have with the University, with St. Clair College, with United Way and the Multicultural Council,” he says. “They provide those added opportunities for our students to achieve their overall success.”
Continuing to build these partnerships is one of Ulicny’s main goals as he enters his term as director this summer.
“Our schools operate as epicentres in the hearts of vibrant communities,” he says, “so we really want to work with all the stakeholders in those communities to provide the best possible Catholic educational experience for the students entrusted to our care.”
Providing an excellent educational experience, regardless of the students’ pathway to post-secondary or workplace, and continuing to emphasize Catholic faith development are also front-of-mind for Ulicny.
“That’s staying true to our core purpose on both the education and faith front,” he says.
Looking back on the trajectory that led him to where he is today, Ulicny also stresses the importance of the connections he made along the way.
Beginning his undergraduate studies in science and switching to applied kinesiology, Ulicny fondly recalls his time in the UWindsor Faculty of Human Kinetics.
“You got to know the faculty very well,” he says. “They took a real vested interest in you as a student. There are still some who I can run into today, and they still remember me by name. That says something about them as individuals but also how it’s a tight-knit community in Windsor-Essex and at the University of Windsor.”
This community feeling extended into his time in the Faculty of Education, which at the time was still located outside of main campus near the E.C.Row Expressway.
“Perhaps because it was apart from campus, you really got to know a lot of other people within the education program,” he says.
Ulicny began his teaching career straight out of his BEd at St. Anne’s High School in Tecumseh in 1992 before transferring to St. Thomas of Villanova in 1994.
“I still had kind of a potpourri of various classes. It’s kind of a mixture as you’re getting your feet wet as a new teacher,” he explains. “I did end up getting a few physical education classes and then slowly transitioned more of my teaching into physical education when I was at Villanova through the mid 1990s.”
Ulicny became department head of physical education, later making the move into administration as Villanova’s vice-principal.
“I pursued my master’s of education when I was moving down the administrative stream a bit,” he explains, noting the challenge of balancing graduate school alongside a full day at work and having a young family.
“A nice thing about the MEd is that you got to build a relationship with the other students because it’s a lot smaller cohort,” he says. “Some of them I still work with today. You have those relationships, that kind of network support within the local community.”
The community mindset of Windsor-Essex is something familiar to Ulicny in both his work as an educator and administrator.
"My experience has typically been that Windsorites or Essex County residents, if they can stay at home, I think a lot of them choose to stay at home and work and live because this is a great area to live, work and raise a family in,” he says.
Having overseen Human Resources at the WECDSB, he has seen the talent coming out of both the University of Windsor and St. Clair College — graduating new teachers, educational assistants, early childhood educators and mental health professionals — who have gone on to work at the WECDSB.
Over the years, he’s also spoken to hundreds of new teachers and educational professionals.
“The best advice I can give is, you have to enter the profession with a lot of passion,” he says.
“The impact that you can have on a child’s life, you just don’t know. I’ve seen firsthand people who either reach out to me or they stop me in the mall 20 or 25 years later to just say thank you.”
“You have the ability to change a student’s life by how you interact with them and the knowledge you impart on them.”
Heading into the 2026-2027 school year and his new role as director, Ulicny says he is honoured and looking forward to future success.
“We know what we need to do, and the message for me over the next five years is really all about team and how we can continue to be better each day,” he says.
“If we believe in our purpose, and we believe in who we are and stay true to that, we can truly do great things.”