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Is Mold Why a South Topsail Classroom Was Sealed Three Days Before School Starts?

Rear of a yellow school bus against a blue sky

Not confirmed. Pender County Schools sealed one South Topsail classroom Friday for additional cleaning and air testing, but has only confirmed "mold-like growth" at C.F. Pope in Burgaw. The district has not said what testing found in Hampstead.

Eric Lander Topsail Guide Editor Published August 23, 2026

Editor’s Note (added Sunday evening, Aug 23): The featured photo that ran with this article earlier tonight was a back-to-school file photo taken at North Topsail Elementary, and a school sign was visible in the frame. The headline, the photo caption, and every social post all said South Topsail, but the photo still caused confusion, and that is on me. I have replaced it. The sealed classroom is at South Topsail Elementary in Hampstead. Nothing in this story involves North Topsail Elementary. I apologize for the confusion.

At a Glance

Question	Answer
Is there mold at South Topsail?	Not confirmed. The district has not said what testing found there. The confirmed “mold-like growth” is at C.F. Pope Elementary in Burgaw
Then why is a classroom sealed?	The district says it needs additional cleaning and air testing. The students and staff assigned to it will use another space in the school
Why was South Topsail tested at all?	The district has not said publicly
Is South Topsail opening Monday?	Yes. Normal schedule Monday, Aug 24, per the district’s Friday update
Does the sealed room share air with the rest of the school?	No. The district says it has its own air system
Have test results been released?	No, for either school, as of Sunday, Aug 23. District office: 910-259-2187

What South Topsail Parents Have Been Told

If your kid starts at South Topsail tomorrow, nobody has told you whether mold is why one of the school’s classrooms is sealed. Pender County Schools has not confirmed mold at South Topsail, and it has not said what the testing there found.

Everything parents have comes from one district update, released Friday evening and reported by WECT: testing flagged one classroom for additional cleaning and air testing, that room is now sealed, and the kids and staff assigned to it will use another space in the school. The room has its own air system and does not share air with the rest of the building. School starts Monday morning on the normal schedule.

That update leaves a lot out. The district has not said which grade uses the room, why South Topsail was being tested in the first place, or when the room will reopen. What it has said: the room gets cleaned again, then tested again, before anyone goes back in.

The confirmed problem, in the district’s words “possible mold-like growth,” is at C.F. Pope Elementary in Burgaw. The Friday update is the first time South Topsail was mentioned at all.

Where This Started: C.F. Pope in Burgaw

Pender County Schools announced on Monday, Aug 17 that it found “areas of possible mold-like growth” in kindergarten and preschool classrooms at C.F. Pope Elementary in Burgaw. The district says the growth appears to be recent and developed while the school’s HVAC system was shut down for planned improvements to the heating and air conditioning. Anyone who has left a beach house closed up in August knows what still, humid air does around here.

Date	What Happened at Pope
Mon, Aug 17	District announces the growth. Carpets removed and sent out for cleaning, rooms hand-cleaned. Rest of campus inspected, no similar growth found
Tue, Aug 18	Outside third-party company conducts indoor air quality testing
Wed, Aug 19	District says additional testing is needed; the annex will not be available for open house
Thu, Aug 20	Open house held. Pre-K through second grade families meet teachers in the gym, since those grades share the annex
Fri, Aug 21 (morning)	A letter from Pope’s principal, reported by WECT, says the start of school could be delayed depending on test results
Fri, Aug 21 (evening)	District says testing shows improvement throughout the affected hallway. Pope opens Monday with two second-grade classrooms still sealed. The same update mentions South Topsail for the first time

Pope is out of the Topsail area, and as a standalone story I was leaving it to the Wilmington outlets. It belongs here because it stopped being a Pope story on Friday: two schools, three sealed classrooms, one district, and no released test data.

Parents Could Not Get Answers Last Week

The communication problem is a county-level story, and other outlets have documented it at Pope. WECT reported that it made repeated attempts to reach Pope’s principal and district officials last week without hearing back. At Thursday’s open house, Nancy Morgan, whose two granddaughters start pre-K at Pope this week, said teachers were not allowed to answer her questions about the closed classrooms. “The school would be better off to just go ahead and tell parents what is going on,” she told WECT.

For South Topsail parents, the gap is wider. Pope got a week of public updates. South Topsail got one paragraph on a Friday evening, without the basics: which room, which grade, what was found, why the school was being tested.

The district has characterized the Pope results (“improvement throughout the affected hallway”) but has not released any actual test reports for either school: what was sampled, what was found, or what cleared the buildings for Monday. Not released as of Sunday, Aug 23. The district office number is 910-259-2187.

What Air Testing for Mold Measures

When a company tests a building’s air for mold, it pulls air samples, counts the spores in them, and compares the numbers to samples taken outside the same day. More spores inside than out, or types that grow on wet carpet and drywall, point to a problem indoors.

There is no federal pass-fail number. The EPA’s guide to mold remediation in schools says there are no EPA regulations or standards for airborne mold, and its own benchmark for a finished cleanup is indoor air that looks like the outdoor air. So “passing” a mold air test comes down to the testing company’s professional judgment, not a number in a regulation. Releasing the reports would let parents, and anyone they ask for a second opinion, see the same data the district saw.

Health Effects of Mold Exposure

Nobody has reported getting sick at either school, in the district’s updates or in any local coverage, and no mold has been confirmed at South Topsail. Mold is still the concern behind the whole cleanup, and what it can do to people is well documented by the CDC and EPA:

Most people: many notice nothing. Some get hay-fever-type symptoms: stuffy nose, sneezing, itchy eyes, coughing.
Kids with asthma or mold allergies: mold is a recognized asthma trigger, and exposure can set off attacks. If your child has asthma, this is the group to watch, and it is a fair question for the school nurse this week.
Young children generally: EPA notes research suggesting early mold exposure may be linked to developing asthma in some children, particularly those genetically predisposed to it.
Adults in the building: teachers, assistants, custodians, and administrators spend more hours in these buildings than the students do, and staff with asthma, allergies, or weakened immune systems are more sensitive to mold, same as the kids. Staff have been back for workdays ahead of Monday.

None of this is a reason to keep a healthy kid home Monday. The sealed room does not share air with the rest of the building, per the district. If your child has a respiratory condition and you want more than a summary, ask the school what the test reports showed.

The District’s Last Mold Cleanup Was After Florence

After Hurricane Florence in September 2018, mold took hold in schools across the district while buildings dried out. The school board approved a string of mold remediation contracts that October as part of storm repairs estimated at more than $12 million across the district’s schools, and Topsail-area students did not get back into their schools until late October, more than a month after the storm.

This time the trigger was smaller and self-inflicted: an AC system intentionally shut down during summer improvement work. The playbook is the same one the district used in 2018: professional cleaning, third-party testing, keep affected spaces closed until they clear. The district has not said whether other school buildings had HVAC work with shutdown periods this summer, or whether they were checked the way the rest of the Pope campus was. Same number for that question: 910-259-2187.

The First Week of School Around Topsail

South Topsail opens Monday morning on the normal schedule for the start of the year.

Down the road, Onslow County just approved a $50M elementary school for Holly Ridge, aimed at the same growth pressure that has Coastal and Dixon over capacity.

Sources

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