Wiscasset High School has its next principal.

The school committee on May 19 unanimously voted to hire Cheri Towle of Newcastle.

The vote in the high school library followed the committee’s closed-door session with Towle and Interim Superintendent of Schools Wayne Dorr.

Dorr said he was thrilled to recommend Towle’s hire.

“Thank you very much. I’m very excited,” Towle told the panel. The 42-year-old has lived in Newcastle 20 years, and after this school year will have a much shorter commute to work. Towle is finishing her third year as principal at Mount View High School in Thorndike, a three-hour, daily round trip compared to the 20-minute round trip she will have for the Wiscasset job.

She wants to introduce some new opportunities for students at Wiscasset High, including dual enrollment, in which courses can count both toward high school graduation and students’ freshman year of college, making it possible to start their post-secondary education as a college sophomore, Towle said. She got dual enrollment started at Mount View, which also offers exploratory classes she would like to add to Wiscasset High. Those classes can involve some unusual subjects for high school, such as yoga and working with animals.

“It’s a chance to pique (students’) curiosity, and get them engaged in school,” Towle told reporters after Monday night’s meeting.

Both the dual enrollment and exploratory classes could help attract more students to the school, she said.

Towle said she chose the Wiscasset position over a principal’s job she was offered at a New Hampshire high school.

“I didn’t want to leave home,” she said.

The New Britain, Conn., native spent every summer of her childhood in Maine.

WHS Principal Deb Taylor is leaving to become Regional School Unit 12’s technology and curriculum director.