Superintendent Juan Larios sent a message to Woodburn School District staff on Wednesday. They’d learned of a targeted ICE operation that led to a parent of a Woodburn student being taken from their home.

Larios wrote that there is potential for more situations like this in the future.

“The diversity within our community is one of our greatest strengths,” he said, “and we are dedicated to creating an environment where each student, no matter their background, feels a deep sense of belonging and is encouraged to thrive as an active leader in their own learning.”

The next morning, Tony Salm — a longstanding teacher and the president of the Woodburn Education Association — heard a similar story.

“One of my students said, ‘I saw this happen,’” Salm recalled. “You know, ‘I saw somebody get taken away in my neighborhood.’”

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Throughout western Oregon, immigration arrests appear to have spiked this week, and school communities have seen the impact.

Angela Bonilla, president of the Portland Association of Teachers, testified to Portland city councilors on Wednesday that her union has received at least four reports of Portland Public Schools parents who’ve been “kidnapped off the street after dropping off their children at school.” Educators have reported families being too scared to send their children to school as a result.

Meanwhile, immigration arrests in and near Salem prompted local schools to reinforce safety plans, and on Monday, school staff in Wilsonville reportedly asked agents who said they were conducting surveillance at a private property near Wood Middle School to leave.

Woodburn teachers are trying a new and unusual tactic in response: adding protections in their employee contract.

On Thursday night, the Woodburn Education Association, which represents more than 300 licensed educators in the mid-Willamette Valley district, proposed a new article to the contract currently being negotiated.

The article, titled “Immigration – Safety & Related Protections,” largely puts the words of a resolution passed in March into the educators’ contract, adding specific protections.

The article outlines specific roles of district and union members if immigration officers arrive on campus. The proposed contract language spells out how any interactions with officers should be conducted, for example, and it has protections related to educator leave, privacy, confidentiality and retaliation.

Families, staff return to school across Oregon, some under fear of ICE arrests

Adding protections in Woodburn

Nearly all the seats in the audience of Woodburn’s school board room were filled, with more people standing around the edges, as leaders of the teachers union and school district met for negotiations Thursday night.

Most wore some kind of “Red for Ed” to show support for the union. Bargaining teams went through each proposed article, while the audience sat quietly. Children played in the back of the room. Some people in attendance held signs or wore anti-ICE buttons.

Salm, president of the association, said an article like the one presented this week has been brewing for a while, as local teachers have been hearing about ICE raids in and around schools in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.

“We believe that having stated specific means of protecting our students and our families from these types of actions is very important,” Salm said.

Just after President Donald Trump’s second inauguration in January, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security rescinded Biden-era guidelines that prohibited immigration officers from arresting migrants at sensitive locations like schools and churches.

For many Woodburn students, fear of deportation has become a fact of daily life, with almost two-thirds of the city’s residents identifying as Latino or Hispanic, Oregon’s largest immigrant group. The Woodburn district enrolls more than 5,200 students, about 87% of whom are Latino or Hispanic. About 42% of staff are, too.

Salm pointed out that Woodburn is a pioneering dual-language district, with programs offered in both Spanish and Russian. Those offerings are an important part of bargaining as well, Salm said.

“In a national atmosphere where the whole idea of multiculturalism … is under attack,” he said, “we think it’s really important to value this program and strengthen it, continue staffing it all the way from kindergarten through 12th grade, because our students come out bilingual and very successful.”

When asked how the district has responded to the union’s latest actions regarding ICE presence, Salm said there has been verbal support for what they’re doing; They have not heard any opposition.

The response is a shift from this past spring, when a slim majority of the Woodburn school board initially rejected a “safe and welcoming schools” proclamation, proposed as a way of reasserting existing protections for students, staff and families who are immigrants. The board later adopted the resolution after vocal community support for it.

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After the May election, Rosie Burkoff is the only board member who initially opposed the resolution and is still on the board. Burkoff maintained opposition on the final vote.

The resolution was largely symbolic. It didn’t change existing district policies that protect students, nor did it change how law enforcement can access school campuses under Oregon law. Still, proponents argued it was a critical step for the school board to take as leaders of a district with a large immigrant community.

The same, to a degree, is true of the contract protections the teachers union is proposing now.

Enrique Farrera, president of the Oregon Education Association — the umbrella organization that supports local units like Woodburn’s — attended the district’s bargaining session Thursday night. The president of Woodburn’s classified workers union was there, too.

Farrera said OEA is hearing from educators across the state who feel they need to protect their students.

“Everybody should feel welcome to come to the classroom, meet their teacher, their educator, their bus driver and learn,” Farrera said. “I mean, that’s what helps us be a strong society.

“When we have attacks by the federal government and troops and ICE raids…,” he said, “that is an environment that’s disrupting learning conditions, not only for people of color, but many other students who receive quality education from our members.”

District leaders didn’t ask questions about the proposed article in the time available Thursday night, but Superintendent Larios did stress the district’s support of Oregon’s existing “sanctuary laws.”

Woodburn School Board narrowly approves ‘Safe and Welcoming Schools’ resolution at tense board meeting

Under these laws, Larios explained in a message to staff on Wednesday, no public resources, including school employees, may be used to assist with federal immigration enforcement actions.

Immigration officials are not allowed access to any part of a school building beyond the school office, he said, and, absent a judicial order, ICE officials do not have the authority to remove a student from school.

The district does not collect information about immigration status, Larios said, and if student records are requested, they will not be provided without a judicial subpoena. Student records are protected under federal and state law.

Thursday was the first presentation of the article. The district will respond to the article with edits and suggestions in the next bargaining session, which Salm said hasn’t been scheduled yet.

It’s not known how long the back-and-forth process may take before the article, and contract as a whole, will be finalized.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/17/woodburn-educators-ice-protections/