SCARBOROUGH – A final candidate has been chosen to become the new principal at Scarborough High School, although an actual job offer awaits the outcome of meetings Tuesday with parents, students and staff.

Notices went out Friday to parents of students in each class advising of an opportunity to meet the candidate, David Creech, one of two assistant principals at Kennebunk High School. The meetings will be held Tuesday in the high school library. Parents of sophomores can meet with Creech 2:45-3:15 p.m. Times for other classes were not immediately available.

“It’s still the selection process, but he is the final candidate,” Superintendent George Entwistle said Friday afternoon. “Input will be collected from each of these venues where he’s interacted with people, and based on that feedback the selection committee will either move him forward as the candidate they are recommending to me or not.”

Entwistle said he has yet to meet Creech and doesn’t “really know anything about him.”

In addition to meet-and-greets on Tuesday, input also will be taken from members of the selection committee, who met Creech during what Entwistle called “a very extensive visit” hosted by the candidate this past week at Kennebunk High school.

According to his profile on the professional networking website LinkedIn, Creech has been a school administrator for less than a year. He began as math teacher, first at Sanford High School from 1986 to 2000, then at Kennebunk High School from 2000 until July 2012, when he ascended to the assistant principal’s job. He holds a bachelor’s degree in secondary education from the University of Maine at Farmington and a master’s in education from the University of Southern Maine.

In an April 24 interview, middle school Principal Barbara Hathorn said more than 30 applications were submitted to replace Dean Auriemma, who resigned “effective immediately” Jan. 25.

Hathorn winnowed those resumes down to four, working with her co-facilitator of the search process, Kelly Mullin-Martin, principal at Pleasant Hill Primary School.

Hathorn said of the 30, many resumes came from candidates not yet certified to be a high school principal in the state of Maine.

“We didn’t even look at those because we had plenty of others we were interested in,” she said at the time.

The four top candidates were scheduled for interviews by the full search committee during the first week of May, she said, in order “to find the best fit.”

Hathorn could not be reached for comment Friday. She said April 24 that “a good fit” will be determined from an online survey competed by parents, students and teachers.

“They told us what they are looking for in a principal and the results were very interesting, I have to tell you,” she said, adding that each stakeholder group appeared to have different desires for an ideal principal, while many of the comments were used to create interview questions.

Hathorn has promised to provide the results of that survey, but Entwistle said Friday she and Mullin-Martin are still working to collate the data into the form of a presentation.

Auriemma was principal at Scarborough High School for two years when he resigned citing family obligations. His departure reportedly followed a no-confidence vote of staffers.

Since Auriemma’s transfer to special project work through the end of his contract June 30, Scarborough High School has been run by a four-person committee led by the school district’s director of curriculum and instruction, Monique Culbertson. Other members of the committee are assistant principals Ray Dunn and Susan Ketch and Athletic Director Mike LeGage.

David Creech

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