Speech Language Pathology Assistant (SLPA) Linda Buddenhagen is retiring after 10 years of working with the Northborough-Southborough community.

Buddenhagen works at Algonquin two days a week and the rest of the school week she is at Lincoln Elementary School alongside Speech Language Pathologist Meghan Reed. While working for 17 years in schools both in and outside of the Northborough-Southborough district, Buddenhagen worked in a multitude of roles including as an elementary teacher. Buddenhagen now hopes to take advantage of her free time in retirement.

“I am going to take care of my grandson and I have a lot of travel planned,” Buddenhagen said. “I am going to Germany, Switzerland and Austria in the fall and in the spring I am going to Spain.”

While Buddenhagen plans for the future, she is  bittersweet about leaving behind what she is used to and beginning a new chapter. 

“I have had the opportunity to service students that I have had at the elementary level–some of them I have known as long as kindergarten–and see them graduate,” Buddenhagen said. “I get to work with kids one-on-one and see them each grow individually.”

Buddenhagen has a masters degree in elementary education and later was licensed as a SLPA once she began working at Algonquin.

“I taught at the elementary level for four years,” Buddenhagen said. “I got laid off and I was desperate for a job. This job fell into my lap and I never looked back.”

Buddenhagen has worked beside students who struggle with expressive and receptive communication. At the high school level, she has helped students with comprehension strategies, written language, social thinking and understanding vocabulary.

“I work with nonverbal students so you teach them to communicate in other ways,” Buddenhagen said.

Speech Language Pathologist Hillary Kuhn has worked besides Buddenhagen for six out of her 10 years at Algonquin.

“I don’t know what I am going to do without her; she is an enormous help,” Kuhn said. “I am excited for her to spend time with her grandson and travel the world but she definitely will be missed.”