There's been speculation for months. Now the school district has revealed the cause for the mold outbreak at Chavez Elementary School.

Should the district have known about the problem sooner?

CHAVEZ REPORT 3/14: I-Team Read It Watch It Read the full engineering report TALKBACK: Who's to blame ...

In Linda Eggert's special I-team report, hear from workers who saw trouble coming.

School custodians Dick Albers and Rhonda Rickey were two of the first staffers to arrive last summer on Chavez's first day.

They told News 3 that long before the school opened to some 400 students, there were massive water and moisture problems.

"Anybody who was in the building could see that there was moisture in the building, so I don't know how they thought they were going to get away with not getting mold in the building," Rickey said.

Rickey said that by Aug. 1, four months before the plastic went up, there was black mold growing on walls on both floors.

"And at least 5 feet up, it was growing on one entire wall," Rickey said.

General contractor Westra Construction of Waupun won a $5 million contract to build Chavez and turn it over without defect. But Rickey, the only person willing to go on camera, and other News 3 sources allege Westra supervisors repeatedly downplayed numerous reports of mold.

"I said 'Ha!' that people can get deathly sick from mold and that I was concerned about it, and that he said, 'Well, you know, I'll clean it up -- don't say anything," Rickey said.

News 3 talked to one construction worker who didn't want to be identified. He claimed Westra supervisors were told "time and time again ... you got to get this stuff down," but that they "didn't seem to care."

If mold was found, he says crews were told to "just paint over it."

"He just wiped it with a rag, and then just painted over it," Rickey said.

Such reports put new light on old interviews with ill teachers who also approached Westra.

"I said, 'Do you think that there's mold?' And he goes, 'Hmmmft! Why would there be mold?"' said teacher Shari Presentine.

A News 3 investigation found the reasons may have been multiple and massive. Sources told News 3 that rain last spring and summer didn't just flood roads, it flooded Chavez school.

They tell News 3 they witnessed it pouring through skylights, doors and windows that had no glass.

"The guys that were putting in the skylights and windows told me and in the LMC that before they had the skylights in they had plastic tarps over them, there was a huge rainstorm over the weekend, and when they came in on Monday, it was flooded," Rickey said.

Another subcontractor who didn't want News 3 to identify him said, "You bet there was water in the building ... all the time, all over. It rained through the skylights and windows and never dried out."

Yet another worker said Chavez was like a "pop can in the summertime," sweating from the inside out.

Custodians said windows were dripping and floors were too wet to wax because 24-hour air conditioning was mixing super-cold air with hot humid air, streaming in from the outside.

"All of the glass that looks down into the stairs, that wasn't in either, so they had like some cardboard up there but it kept falling off, so they had taped it up, so there was moisture coming -- everywhere," Rickey said.

Three weeks ago, mold was found on several skylights, and a July construction note obtained by News 3 shows "ceiling tile (had) to be replaced due to sweating pipes." But late last month -- and now in sharp contrast to the new report -- the school district's project representative told News 3 there weren't any water problems from blown out plastic.

Instead, Rick Hopke pointed to a couple of large leaks, including one in July that flooded the kindergarten area.

A third Chavez custodian told News 3 there were two inches of water in places after Westra sprayed the roof with a water canon to pressure test a roof drain -- that's supposed to dump water outside.

Finally, some custodians report ongoing roof leaks both before school started and after.

"During our open house, in our cafeteria, it was raining outside, and it was raining inside," Rickey said. "It was just pouring down from the ceiling ... onto the floors, so we had leaks on the roof the whole time."

A late June construction report also obtained by News 3 indicates a roof delay.

"We need a resolution ASAP," it reads, "Roof has to be 100 percent soon." But both Hopke and the roofer deny the roof caused any mold.

"Nobody really knows who's created the problem," said Gary Brown, owner of Gary Brown Roofing in McFarland. "However, I can tell you it's not coming through the roofing system."

Rickey said she just wants to help make sure all this, never happens again.

"I think we're paying for it dearly," she said.

Rickey said she told district officials on site about mold, and they told her to report any problems to Westra. The Westra attorney said he never heard about Westra covering things up and denies that would have happened.

But a construction worker said he thinks Westra did a "rush job" to get the project done. A school official said people were just working "so hard to get the building open."

The district promises that will happen for the second time, next fall.