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Father Judge HS Deemed Safe, Students Get Another Day Off

By Hadas Kuznits

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Students of Father Judge High School in Northeast Philadelphia will have Wednesday off.

Father Joseph Campellone, president of Father Judge High School, says while the city's board of health says the school is safe, they've decided to close and conduct some additional tests:

"It is strange, it's baffling. I'm really trying to come up with an idea of what happened during this time frame."

He says nearly two dozen people suffered skin and eye irritation Sunday during a cheerleading event at the school (see previous story):

"It's only people that were at that cheerleading competition from the 8am to 4pm time frame -- and I'm baffled, I'll be honest with you, and I'm concerned and I want to find out what it is.  And right now it's a mystery."

Campellone says the school has been given the go-ahead to reopen.  But without clear answers about what happened this weekend, they're holding off:

"We hired another agency that's going to be working with us to look and see if there's anything. At this point the board of health and other testing that has been done has deemed us safe, but we just want to continue to try some other avenues."

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