A suspected mould problem has forced the closure of Mountainview Elementary in Howie Centre. (Wendy Martin/CBC)

Staff at East Bay Elementary are preparing for 173 students from Mountainview Elementary School after the Cape Breton school closed Wednesday from suspected mould.

The extra students head to East Bay Sept. 24, creating a tight deadline for staff.

"They are now working, unpacking trying to set up in the rooms here, in a way that when students arrive Monday, it will be all new for them, but they will have their same teachers, same work, same materials," said Jeannie Stone principal of East Bay Elementary.

"While we are here it will be absolutely the same as Mountainview only a different building."

East Bay School is freeing up its French, art and music rooms to accommodate the extra students.

"We took our art teacher, our music teacher, our French teacher, and I must say they did it with smiles, and we told them that they were music, French and art on the move. They have their little trolleys, they go from class to class and we took all of their rooms and turned it into classrooms for the next few weeks and they were 100 per cent wonderful about it," said Stone.

Charles Sheppard is the co-ordinator of school services with the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School board.

He said samples of the suspected mould are being tested and so far no one has complained of any health problems.

There's no word on when Mountainview Elementary will reopen.