Mold found at second Chesapeake school

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) - Chesapeake school officials report mold has been found at a second school in the district.

WAVY.com has been following the mold problems at Great Bridge Primary School since Sept. 12 when a 6-year-old boy, Landon Miller, spent three days in a hospital due to respiratory problems his doctor says may have been caused by mold inside of his classroom at Great Bridge.

Following WAVY-TV's reports, the company hired to clean the classrooms took additional air tests and the spore and mold analysis at Great Bridge came back clean earlier this week.

Wednesday, the Chesapeake Schools System, along with the environmental company that ordered the tests, went over the findings with WAVY, but would not allow the meeting to be recorded.

During that meeting, WAVY asked about mold at Hickory High School, as well as other schools in the district. Chesapeake Schools Public Information Officer Tom Cupitt and Assistant Superintendent for Operations Steven Gilbert both denied there was any mold at Hickory or at any other schools.

Later that day, Cupitt put out a statement to other media outlets confirming mold at Hickory, but the release was not sent to WAVY.

"We are not trying to cover anything up," Cupitt said when Andy Fox asked why he had not informed WAVY.com of the mold found at Hickory Wednesday.

Watch the full Thursday interview with Cupitt here.

A Hickory High School student admitted some of the school had smelled bad, and even said his class was moved to another room.

Read a letter sent home to parents here.

"The English classroom smells pretty bad, I am not going to lie," he said. "[It smells] bitter, Sulfuric... almost."

The mold problem at Hickory was caused by a bad A/C system that was taken out during the summer. When that happened, there were huge amounts of humidity that created mold. Officials say the mold should be cleaned up by Friday.