Dear Editor: I attended the Plainedge Board of Education Public Business meeting on June 11, 2009. It is the last meeting of the school year where retiring em­ployees are honored for their many years of service to Plainedge children. Several audience members, however, were offended by the lack of professional­ism displayed at this meeting by the two outgoing Board of Education members, Frank Presuto and Allan Fox. Both gentlemen wore red T-shirts to this meeting which read, "I served on the Plainedge School Board and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." While some may have thought this humorous, (and in a different venue, privately, it may have been), some of us felt it was in very poor taste, as well as an insult to the community residents who elected them and to the staff who were being honored that evening. Even more so, it was embarrassing that these two board members chose this slogan to be the final impression they wished to impart to the staff and the community at their last public meeting as Board of Education Trustees.

School Board service is not about serving one's own self interests - it is about serving the needs of the students and community to insure that Plainedge offers quality educational programs which allow stu­dents to excel, and which elevate the school district's ranking against other Nassau County districts. If Mr. Presuto and Mr. Fox got nothing out of their years on the School Board, which is the perception that their T-shirts evoked, then maybe they did not understand their role, or maybe they were not there for the right reasons, in which case they made the right decision in choosing not to run for re-election. The Plainedge community expects its elected representatives on the Board of Education to dis­play professionalism at all times in conducting school board business. Since the acts of one or two individuals can and do reflect negatively on every­one

sitting around the table, Board members and staff alike, I hope that the entire School Board will consider implementing a policy which addresses appropriate attire at public Board meetings. MaryAnn Karageorges Plainedge