Monday, December 10, 2012
Dr. Charles Gobron, superintendent of schools, discusses the initial planning of the FY2014 school budget.
Looking ahead to FY2014, Superintendent of Schools Charles Gobron and his team strive to maintain the high standards of the Northborough public schools while adhering to the ever mounting fiscal constraints. "We've been fortunate that determining the needs has been quite inclusive," Gobron said. "The initiatives will be long range." Gobron told the Northborough-Southborough School Committee that he will begin examining more closely the 2014 budget in January, and offered a presentation on the goals. These goals include maintaining a high quality staff, keeping within acceptable student/teacher ratios, meeting the needs of all learners, maintaining the district's capital assets with an emphasis on energy efficiencies, ensuring that the …
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
The state will get a waiver from some of the toughest requirements in this testing.
Local educators will get a break from the No Child Left Behind Act, the highly debated federal law criticized for its one-size-fits-all approach to measuring success. President Barack Obama has announced that Massachusetts will receive a waiver from some of the 10-year-old legislation's toughest requirements in exchange for a state-developed plan. "The lifting of federal sanctions and the ability to use other factors than straight MCAS scores in determining how students and schools are progressing is welcome news for us," said Superintendent of Schools Dr. Charles Gobron. "Perhaps the lofty goals of NCLB can continue without the threat of sanctions, over-reliance on test scores, and comparison of school districts simply on the results of …
Friday, January 6, 2012
Superintendent Charles Gobron said that although the budget shows an increase for 2013, he's satisfied and meets the needs of the students.
"This year has been a particularly exciting year," said Superintendent of Schools Charles Gobron. "I have enjoyed being superintendent more than any other year because of the excitement around the cirriculum and instruction. We are a district on the move, despite economic restraints." Those restraints come in the form of a lot less federal aid for FY2013, Gobron explained as part of his presentation on the preliminary school budget to the Northborough School Committee. Gobron stressed that the budget was just that: preliminary, and various adjustments and factors always come into play before the final is submitted for Town Meeting approval. The FY2013 budget for the K-8 Northborough public schools of $19,672,524 is a 5.18 percent increase …
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
The School Committee weighs in on an overview of a budget concept for FY2013.
Superintendent Charles Gobron stressed, he wasn't presenting a preliminary FY2013 school budget; he was opening up a discussion about a preliminary budget. Either way, the School Committee got a chance to take a look at some thoughts on the next fiscal year's budget plan for the Northborough schools. Gobron outlined priorities in line with a district wide strategic plan, and approach that strives to "sustain our current staffing levels due to loss of stimulus funding" and the "ability to increase our capacity to better meet the needs of our current student population." An obstacle, he said, this year is overcoming a "funding cliff" that now exists due to the lack of federal funding, which for the past two years helped the schools navigate…
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Some parents are raising the issue, should April vacation be canceled?
Given the number of snow days so far in 2011, some parents — and residents — have questioned the option of canceling April vacation for Northborough schools in order to "cancel out the days." "I think the schools should cancel April vacation," said Michael Horgan on Northborough Patch's facebook page. "You know they are going to have more snow day, and this would keep them from going into late June or early July. I also think two vacations in the spring is too many anyway." Not so fast, said Dr. Charles Gobron, superintendent of schools, who said that the schools haven't even hit the planned snow day total. "We scheduled five snow days for the 2011-2012 school year," said Gobron. "So far, Northborough and Algonquin have used three. We may …
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Power has been restored to the schools, and scheduling will commence as planned.
Be sure to lay out that first day of school outfit Tuesday night. Superintendent Dr. Charles Gobron confirmed that all ten schools in the Northborough-Southborough School district will be starting, and starting on time, on Wednesday, Aug. 31. "Power has been restored to each school and teachers are at work today [Tuesday] in professional development activities," said Gobron, as well as preparation for the arrival of students tomorrow. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Northborough and Southborough safety officials who have done an outstanding job helping us during the aftermath of the hurricane."
ET
3:54 pm on Tuesday, February 14, 2012
This is great news! Always thought the MCAS testing was far from a true perception of what a student is capable of doing and able to do in a normal learning environment 180 days of the school year. Two days of intense testing and many months of teaching towards for familiarity of those tests is certainly not the right approach. Glad other approaches are being considered to get a full assessment … more ›