Trustees accept $30,000 in T-Mobile grants

Other Committee · Meeting of October 20, 2026

NORTHAMPTON — The Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School Board of Trustees accepted $30,000 in T-Mobile grants despite a trustee's objection over corporate advertising to students. Trustee Dr. Spencer Robinson said he was "feeling frustrated" that the school was competing for a $1 million T-Mobile sweepstakes prize, including possible ad signage on athletic field light poles, before the board had a sponsorship policy in place; that policy was referred to the policy subcommittee rather than adopted.

Administrator Joe Bianca defended using informal board email to disclose the grant's progress, saying "I made a choice to use that mechanism... knowing full well that the board still had to go on accepting it." Trustees separately approved applying for a federal STOP School Violence Program grant after staff corrected the cost of a Peerless VR de-escalation trainer from an agenda-listed $35,000 to $58,000 for two units. In a contested roll call, trustees voted 2-1 with one abstention to create a new Teaching, Learning and Student Success Subcommittee over one member's objection that it duplicated existing oversight.

In the full story:

• Who Was There
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Source: the Other Committee meeting of October 20, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript.