Officials from the Charter School of Educational Excellence and Yonkers city officials cut a ribbon at the school’s new stage on May 16, 2023. Photo courtesy of the CSEE
The Charter School of Educational Excellence cut a ribbon Tuesday on a new stage at its high school designed to help students learn theatrical rigging and other skills that will help them land jobs at Lionsgate Studios and other media stages opening in Yonkers.
“Behind the scenes is where the real theater takes place. There are jobs—great opportunities for you to do standing, rigging, sound. All those things are high paying jobs and what we hope to do with this stage is to start to introduce you to that field and those opportunities,” said Eduardo LaGuerre, the school’s founder and chair of the Board of Trustees, during a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The new stage includes 600 seats, state-of-the-art audio-visual capacities, and a large projection screen.
The addition of the stage is the latest upgrade for the K-12 public charter school. In 2021, the school opened a $27 million high school at 220 Warburton Ave.
The 76,000-square-foot high school includes a competition-size soccer field and oversized classrooms. The high school offers culinary arts, automobile technology and health sciences programs that allow graduating students to acquire immediate employment. For the students seeking to continue their studies, the CSEE’s curriculum includes up to 24 college credits.
From its opening in 2005, the CSEE’s mission is to empower children to excel. Its students have 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 Schoo
