School district's central offices are on the move
By Ken Powers Contributing Writer
Northborough/Southborough - The school department is finally going back to school.

After years in their home away from home - an office park building at 44 Bearfoot Road in Northborough - administrators of the Northborough and Southborough public school systems, as well as the Algonquin Regional High School (ARHS), which serves both towns have moved into new offices inside school buildings.

The bulk of the central office staff - including acting Superintendent Charles Gobron - have moved into four classrooms at the Neary Elementary School in Southborough.

Gobron said the curriculum and instruction offices will be housed in two rooms at Trottier Middle School in Southborough, while the district's Special Education Director Barbara Goodman will have an office at ARHS.

"We're very happy about the move," Gobron said, "but what an ordeal this has been. We thought it would just mean moving a few boxes."

The move was completed last week, with the central office staff officially relocating Aug. 20.

Gobron wasn't worried about the fact that the entire team of top administrators wouldn't be located all together as had always previously been the case.

"Our plan is to meet at least once a week, and then more as it's warranted," Gobron said. "Besides, we're not that far apart and we'll continue to do a great deal of our communicating via e-mail, which is largely how we communicated previously, even when our offices were side-by-side over on Bearfoot Road."

The central office moved to Bearfoot Road in 2001 as a result of space being needed for the construction and renovation project that was beginning at ARHS.

The plan had been to move the central office back to ARHS when the project was completed, but the Massachusetts School Building Authority informed the school district that it would not pay for work at the high school that was done on or in areas that would not be used to educate students.

At the Aug. 13 Board of Selectmen meeting, Southborough Town Administrator Jean Kitchen asked Gobron if the town would be receiving any compensation from Northborough since the bulk of the offices are located in schools located in Southborough.

"The Northborough School Committee has that on their list of things to discuss," Gobron told Kitchen at the meeting. "I'm sure something will be worked out between the two towns that will be acceptable to both."