Dr. Joseph Restino. PHOTO PROVIDED

School is under way at Lemuel Teal Middle School where more than 1,000 students were welcomed when the second school year began for the new Lehigh Acres school.

The school opened with 660 students at the start of school last year and ended with 770 students before welcoming 1,016 students for the 2024-2025 school year, Principal Dr. Joseph Restino said, adding that although they had some unchartered territory opening with an increase of 300 kids, the first day turned out to be a great day.

Restino hired 20 new people due to the student growth the school experienced.

“There really isn’t a book about building, or running a new school. I was board-approved in February. I hired over 72 people in five months. I managed to do it and surround myself with awesome people,” he said, adding they built a culture where every idea is taken into account.

The condition of employment was to believe in the vision, as things might be turned on a dime. He told them they would learn together, communicate, and help in decision making, Restino said.

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“From a data standpoint, we did fantastic,” he said. “How well kids did coming in – reading and math levels verse where they came out – they made substantial growth in one year.”

This school year marks the 11th year for Restino as an administrator. He worked at Lehigh Acres Middle School and Harns Marsh Middle School.

“I reached a point where I truly felt I was ready,” he said, as he just came off of getting the Assistant Principal of the Year award. “A brand-new middle school was opening up – middle school QQ and it was in the old Lehigh Acres Middle School building – almost perfect timing. I was an assistant principal here for six years. It made sense for me to go after it. Thankfully, the people hired me thought so too.”

To honor the school’s namesake, some of Lemuel Teal’s awards and Golden Apple are part of the museum located in the lobby, so students and families know why the school is called Lemuel Teal.

“I was really fortunate once again to work in a building named after such a great educator and to surround myself by fantastic people,” he said.

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This year the focus is expounding on what worked last year and forming a team to collaboratively work on areas that need attention – increasing their school grade, which missed a C grade by one percentage point last year.

“I was very fortunate to not lose a lot of teachers,” he said. “Thankfully we have veteran teachers here and they all have their own unique perspective.”

Restino said they ended the school year last year with a D, as the state changed the cut off scores. He said he is fully confident they have the right people in the right places doing the right things to accomplish that goal.

As a second-year principal of a new middle school, Restino continues to listen to ideas from his entire staff to ignite the students’ interest in special programs.

One of those – a beat lab – a nontraditional music creating experience on the computer, rather than instruments.

“I envision using the new black box theater with one student in the middle of the stage playing music,” he said.

There is also a digital design art class that began with the hopes that interest will continue to build.

Another exciting soon-to-be introduction for this school is a new black box theater of about 500 seats.

“It is going to be a massive building,” Restino said of the building under construction. “It’s a community concept where not only it is a shared structure between Veteran’s Park and Lemuel Teal, but another structure the community can rent out and use to have their own shows and events.”

The standalone structure will be located right next to the middle school with the hopes of opening at the end of the school year.

Last year a science teacher taught a period of drama, which turned into a drama club with 25 to 30 students who consistently showed up almost every day and did shows. These students paved the way for a drama elective class.

With there being a lot of focus on the arts, Restino said he wanted to create something that was outside of the box.

“I have created an entrepreneurial program. I hired a teacher who got really excited about getting students interested in creating their own business,” Restino said. “Lehigh is booming. Fort Myers is one of the largest-growing cities in the nation.”

With that growth, there is a need for more jobs and businesses. As an East Lee County Chamber of Commerce board of director, he wants students to develop their own business and concepts.

“We purchased a giant laser engraver,” Restino said. My dream is to come up with an Etsy account, or some type of account for Lemuel Teal,” he said. “They can put in their orders and kids can work with the money and dive into the cost of a cutting board and how much they are going to sell it after using a laser engraver. It’s a dream project.”