A Portland grade school is relocating due to what it describes as dangerous and violent conditions caused by a nearby ICE facility and its aggressive responses to protesters outside the building.
The Cottonwood School, a public charter in southwest Portland, Ore., called the move an “emergency move,” according to an automated response PEOPLE received from a school official’s email account.
PEOPLE reached out to school administrators following reports from local outlets KATU, KGW8, and KPTV, which first covered the relocation amid ICE agents’ actions against protesters outside the facility.
“Cottonwood is currently in the process of an emergency move,” an email from Laura Cartwright, the interim executive director of the Cottonwood School, read Friday. She noted that it could take several days to respond amid the school’s relocation efforts.
Cartwright told KATU earlier Friday that officials decided to move the school out of concern for student safety, citing ICE agents’ continued use of tear gas that neighbors have called both toxic and hazardous.
The charter school’s interim executive director also noted that educators have routinely found “munitions” on the school playground.
“In terms of our impact, we have been impacted mostly by chemical weapons that are being used against protesters in the vicinity of our school,” Cartwright told KATU. “Daily, we were finding munitions on our play yard, getting footage in the evenings of green gases and other chemicals being used near our gardens, enveloping our area.”
The school official told KGW8 that Cottonwood has temporarily moved into a building owned by Bridges Middle School, located more than a mile away, which recently relocated for an unrelated reason.
Cottonwood Schools serves students from kindergarten through eighth grade, according to KGW8. Cartwright explained that school officials noticed an uptick in violent clashes and dangerous tear gas use toward the end of the last school year, and that enrollment was “regularly” declining due to its proximity to the ICE facility.
“Our garden was enveloped in gases one evening, and we started to think we might not be able to mediate this and open on time for the school year,” Cartwright told KGW8.
In another interview with KPTV, Cartwright said the ongoing issues from ICE agents were “making it unsafe for the future” of the school, which is set to start the next school year in two weeks while teachers continue moving into the new location.
A spokesperson for ICE, whose deportation officers have faced criticism in recent months for concealing their identities behind masks, did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
