The Cottonwood School relocated after activity at the nearby ICE facility created safety concerns, including chemicals, munitions and gas impacting the campus. PORTLAND, Oregon — The Cottonwood School of Civics and Science relocated, just weeks before the school year begins Sept. 2. The decision to move followed months of protests outside Portland's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and law enforcement's response to the demonstrations, which raised safety concerns. The K-8 charter school had been next door to the ICE building for years. But interim Executive Director Laura Cartwright said increased protest activity at the facility this summer led to the use of chemicals and munitions that went onto school grounds, and it made the site unsafe. "At the end of the school year, we started noticing more activity at the ICE building, and there were chemicals being used on a regular basis and munitions being found on our playground," Cartwright said. During the summer, it got worse. "Our garden was enveloped in gases one evening, and we started to think we might not be able to mediate this in the school year and open on time," she said. Cartwright said school officials had to remove wood chips, clear and test the soil, and complete other cleanup work before and after the 2020 protests. However, as kids weren't coming back to school full time back then due to the pandemic, this time was different and harder to navigate. The school director said enrollment also began to drop as parents told the school they weren't going to send their children back because of the school's proximity to the ICE facility. "We are chartered to be able to have up to 220 (students); however, we are at 157 right now, for all the loss of enrollment over the summer due to the activity," Cartwright said. Earlier this month, the school board approved a move to Southwest First Avenue, where Cottonwood is subleasing the building Bridges Middle School was originally housed in, which moved into a different, permanent building recently. Portland city officials helped coordinate the transition. "What made this work is we did build some partnerships between the two different schools, our internal bureaucracy, other council offices and just got everyone on the same page," said City Councilor Mitch Green, who represents District 4. "One of the things that we realized pretty early on was that we have a really effective Portland Permitting and Development department," he also said. "We brought them in pretty early, and kind of pulled together all the partners of the schools, pulled my team into it, and just came up with a plan to tackle this pretty quickly." He said this was all done within a month and a half. His office has also helped coordinate a volunteer opportunity for other city council staff to help as well, and he will be helping with setting up the school this weekend as well. "I'm feeling really hopeful," Cartwright said. "Our community is really resilient." Cottonwood is continuing to raise money and collect donations to support the move. Anyone wishing to support can do so here.