On Sept. 15, the Charter School of Educational Excellence celebrated the opening of Yonkers’ first new public high school in decades, which was the culmination of 16 years of effort by a dedicated group of volunteers.
The $27 million new building at 220 Warburton Ave. achieves the vision by the founders of the CSEE to create a K-12 school that provides educational choices for families of all economic backgrounds in Yonkers and the surrounding communities.
“With the opening of this new facility, our school will offer families access to a learning community that will nurture their children from the beginning of their educational journey until they reach college age,” said Eduardo LaGuerre, the CSEE’s founder and chairman of the Board of Trustees. “I am grateful to our board members, teachers and parents who supported us through the past 16 years as we expanded from a small school with 250 students in a former strip mall to a vibrant, state-of-the-art campus that accommodates 1,126 students.”
The 76,000-square-foot high school includes a competition-size soccer field and oversized classrooms. The high school will offer culinary arts, automobile technology and health sciences programs that will allow graduating students to acquire immediate employment. For the students seeking to continue their studies, the CSEE’s curriculum will include up to 24 college credits.
The student body is expected to reach 1,026 children in the fall. About half the students are from Yonkers, with the rest predominantly from Mount Vernon and the Bronx. The CSEE began phasing in high school grades in 2019 and this fall the high school will have grades 9 through 11. The 12th-grade cohort will be introduced in the fall of 2022.
From its opening in 2005, the CSEE’s mission is to empower children to excel. Consequently, students performed better on state assessment exams than their counterparts in the Yonkers Public Schools for the last six years. The NYS Education Department designated the CSEE as an exceptional Reward School.
According to assessment results posted on the New York State Education Department’s website, 80 percent of the CSEE’s third graders and 72 percent of eighth graders scored at proficient levels in English language arts exams.
At the Yonkers Public Schools, 40 percent of third graders and 32 percent of eighth graders scored at proficient levels in English language arts exams, according to the state’s website.
The CSEE is a public school open to any school-aged New York child. The CSEE is funded through payments made by public school districts where the attending students live.
The new high school was built on the grounds of the former Our Lady of the Rosary Church, which the charter school bought from the New York Archdiocese for $3.2 million. Due to asbestos contamination, the school was unable to preserve the church building as it had originally intended.
