The ideal place might have been in front of an AAA office. But a busload of second-graders from Western Massachusetts found the next best thing when their school bus broke down June 6 in front of NYSUT headquarters on busy Route 7 in the Albany suburb of Latham.
The students and their two teachers from J.S. Sullivan School in North Adams, Mass., were en route home from a field trip in the Capital District when the bus died. Could they come inside and eat their lunches while they waited for a replacement bus, the teachers asked the first person they saw - NYSUT legislative staffer Kristan Connolly.
She called on the union's experts in group hospitality - Travel and Conference Services. Manager Julie Ann Price and staffer Aaron Bifaro helped get the travelers comfortably settled in the conference center, where they spent the next two hours watching TV, eating lunch and meeting a number of NYSUT staff and officials, including President Dick Iannuzzi, who dropped by to welcome them.