ALAMANCE COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — Students in Alamance County have gotten an extra week of summer break.

The start of the school year is delayed for thousands of students while crews clean up mold in more than a dozen Alamance-Burlington School buildings and students won’t go back until Sept. 11.

In the meantime, a city pool is stepping up to help. The City of Burlington announced for the first time that the splash pad at Splash Park will stay open past Labor Day.

Janea and Morgan who attend Grove Park Elementary School say they don’t mind.

“I don’t want to go back,” Janea said.

“Me neither, it’s really hard,” Morgan added.

What they don’t realize is that school being delayed has been hard on thousands of parents, including their own mother Tia Burt. “I’ve been cutting hours just to take care of my kids. I don’t know how much longer my budget can last.”

Just up the road, North Park Pool is also extending their hours.

Javion Snipes is an 11^th grader at Southern Alamance High School. Instead of sitting at home, he picked up shifts while waiting for crews to get the work done and district leaders to give the all-clear.

“I feel like my other peers have struggled with communication because when you’re out of school you don’t have anyone to talk to,” Snipes said. “Or have anything to do, really, except be at home and do nothing.”

The idea to extend pool hours happened after a high schooler reached out to Burlington Aquatics Director Sam Karlson.

“One of my splash parks staff reached out and said ‘hey they pushed back the start date again,’” Karlson said. “I reached out to the rest of my staff by Saturday and we had the whole week ready to go by Sunday afternoon so it’s all up to them. They did a great job coming together for their community as well.”

Both North Park Pool and Splash Park have extended their hours through next Saturday.

Karlson says if the school system does delay the first day of classes again, they’ll discuss keeping the pool open until students get back in the classroom.