SANDPOINT — As a former Bulldog, taking over as the new Sandpoint High School principal is an exciting transition for David Miles II.

“I have always looked forward to eventually one day returning to the place that kind of started it all for me — in a lot of respects I never left,” Miles said.

Miles graduated from SHS in 1995 where, among some of the other teachers who are still at the school, he was taught by his predecessor and now superintendent of the Lake Pend Oreille School District, Tom Albertson. In addition, Miles said he went to school with many of the current teachers at SHS and throughout the district.

Miles returned to Sandpoint after graduating from the University of Idaho with a bachelor’s degree in public communication and earning his teaching certificate in 2001. From 2002 through 2012, he taught speech for a time, and then primarily world history among various other social studies classes at SHS, he said. Within that time, Miles said he spent two years in administrative assistance, which he described as a step below the vice-principal. Then he spent a year as an interim vice principal at SHS.

“So quite a bit of things there at Sandpoint High School, and in the midst of that I actually spent one year at Sandpoint Middle School as well,” Miles said.

Miles has spent the past six years as the principal of Boundary County Middle School in Bonners Ferry. When he saw Albertson was named superintendent and the position opened up at SHS, he decided to apply. It was an ideal opportunity he said, because while he was working in Bonners Ferry, he remained living in Sandpoint with his wife and two kids.

His wife, Sara Miles, teaches English at SHS, and both of his children attended Washington Elementary with the oldest heading to SMS this year.

Miles said he has stayed involved locally as well, being the announcer at all home football games for the past six years, and the announcer for “pretty much every other home sport” before that.

“I like to help out wherever I can, and I am just really excited to fully return,” Miles said.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.