Besides not sounding natural, it's probably because they knew it'd be confusing for the audience in the next episodes when Riker and Deanna aren't freaking out about her. If they said she's at the Academy and do the Borg story and they're not freaking out, then they know it'll look bad. It would have been nice to get a shoutout about her whereabouts, but they mentioned her a few times and looking back, I think that's enough if they're not going to be more specific about what she's up to.
But no, unless the messed with the transporters at the Academy, then no I don't think so. When they're on the Enterprise, one of them says that Spacedock was the only thing standing between and protecting Earth from an assimilated fleet. That makes me assume it was just the fleet.