Susan Ketch, a veteran school administrator in Scarborough, has been chosen to be the next superintendent. KELLEY BOUCHARD/Portland Press Herald

The Scarborough Board of Education has picked a veteran administrator as the new principal of Scarborough High School.

Susan J. Ketch was recommended by the outgoing superintendent, Julie Kukenberger, who decided in November to ask that her contract not be renewed for the 2019-20 school year. Ketch was also recommended by an interview committee consisting of teachers, a member of the school board, school administrators, an educational technician, a parent and a high school student.

The school board said the appointment will be final once it works out a contract with Ketch.

Ketch has been in the Scarborough school system since 1984 and was named lead teacher for the schools’ fine arts department three years later. In 1992, she was named associate principal at the high school and in 1997 added the role as director of alternative education. She has served as interim principal at the high school for this school year.

The hiring comes at a tumultuous time for the district. Former principal David Creech resigned in February 2018 amid a controversy over new school start times. He later said that he was forced out by Kukenberger and asked for his job back, but was turned down by the school board. Before he left to take a job in Winthrop, a community group formed to force a recall election in which three of the seven school board members were ousted.

Then last November, voters picked five new school board members – from 15 candidates – that included four who were backed by the “Road to Renewal” group that was seeking Kukenberger’s firing. Her announcement that she wouldn’t seek to have her contract renewed came about a week later.