EAST PROVIDENCE — High School assistant principal Raymond C. Lombardo and two administrators outside of the city are vying to be East Providence’s next high school principal.

More than a dozen candidates applied, and a screening committee narrowed the group to three, Schools Supt. Jacqueline Forbes said yesterday. Public interviews will be held this evening at 7 in Martin Middle School.

The School Committee plans to choose a new principal at tonight’s meeting, which begins after the interviews conclude. It hopes to have the new principal begin Dec. 1, the date Principal Edward Daft will start as the department’s assistant superintendent. Daft was promoted last month.

The committee unanimously chose Daft over two other candidates. That he already worked in the city’s schools was a point in his favor, officials say.

“Mr. Daft certainly had a track record that we should be honoring,” committee Chairman Antone Gouveia Jr. said after the vote was taken. “The School Committee and I believe if you have the talent within our district, by all means, don’t stand in their way. Promote them.”

Lombardo grew up in East Providence and graduated in 1967 from the high school he wants to lead. He was an all-state football player and wrestler. After receiving degrees from the University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College, he returned to East Providence in 1974 to teach mathematics at the then Central Junior High School, later renamed after the late educator Edward R. Martin.

He moved up the ranks at Martin and worked a short time at Riverside Middle School before leaving the city to be Smithfield High School’s assistant principal. He came back to East Providence after only three years and took his current job.

“I’m nervous,” Lombardo said yesterday about tonight’s interview. “[Being principal at his alma mater] would be a tremendous feeling. The school is definitely going in the right direction.”

Elizabeth Legault, a principal at Calcutt Middle School, in Central Falls, and Mario Andrade, an assistant principal at Rogers High School, Newport, are finalists with Lombardo.

Andrade has been at Rogers for three years. He was a special-education teacher in Central Falls for five years before that.

Elizabeth Legault’s career has straddled Central Falls and East Providence. She was a teacher at Central Falls High School and left to be an assistant principal at East Providence High School. She then returned to Central Falls in her current position.

In June, Legault alleged Central Falls Schools Supt. Patricia Watkins had harassed her and called her a racist. In an affidavit, Legault lists disagreements she had with Watkins over the hiring of teachers, reprimands Watkins has given her, and a bad evaluation she received from Watkins, among other things.

An attorney hired by the Central Falls board of trustees is investigating the harassment and racial-discrimination charges.