The School Board members who worked most ardently to push the superintendent out of a window two weeks ago tonight have achieved their short-term goal:

To smear the reputation of young Dr. Josh Arnold, who, by all outward appearances, was both popular and effective.

The Board culprits could have achieved a smarter, classier outcome.

Why didn’t they sit down with Dr. Arnold and work out an arrangement whereby he would quietly leave?

The employee, no matter his stature, always is going to lose when skyscraper egos clash.

But the erstwhile superintendent can lose and still save face if the School Board uncouples him in a professional manner instead of what resembles a vengeful act.

“Smarter” and “classier” should not have been foreign concepts.

A pity.

The charismatic and talented Dr. Arnold quickly became the face of the school community while the Board, apparently in frustration, fidgeted in the background.

The Board culprits didn’t like sitting in the back seat just because Dr. Arnold was a professional educator and they were not.

The clash of delicate egos is as unusual as sunrise, as curable as a bloody nose.

Only, however, if the executioners possess class and a remote idea of how to lead and handle people.

The evidence is thin.