At South Philly High, brown water worries students and staff; the building will be closed Friday

The problems began Wednesday, when most bathrooms in South Philadelphia High School — where more than 600 students are enrolled — lacked running water, functional sinks or toilets for much of the day. Some staff members reported what appeared to be overflowing sewage in bathrooms.

Eventually, water was restored, but on Thursday, some of the school’s fountains and sinks produced dark brown water, and some bathrooms were still unusable, teachers said.

The conditions angered students and staff, who appealed to district and city officials over the course of two days, but got few answers, they say.

Classes will be virtual Friday, with the building physically closed to staff and students, the school’s interim principal announced Thursday night.

School officials said the initial problems were caused by Philadelphia Water Department work that affected water pressure in the area, and said the discolored water resulted from a buildup of air in building pipes. They said city water officials inspected the school and deemed it “fully operational.”

Spokesperson Monica Lewis said the decision was made to keep students in school on Wednesday because some first-floor bathrooms were working. The school has six floors.

“At no time were people in any danger of using unsafe water,” said Lewis, adding that to the best of her knowledge, there was no sewage — only the brown water that resulted from air pockets.

But many staff members and advocates questioned why hundreds of students were kept in a building without adequate bathroom access for hours on Wednesday, and said the information they received was shifting and often contradictory. They said some students were denied the ability to use the bathroom, and that lunches were prepared without water on Wednesday, and by using the brown water on Thursday.

“When I walked into one bathroom, I saw the toilet overflowing,” one teacher said. The teacher asked that their name be withheld for fear of retribution. “I saw things from the toilet overflowing. I saw the sink overflowing. There were bits of toilet paper and other things floating around.”

Another teacher, who also asked to remain anonymous for fear of punishment from district officials, called the conditions “unsafe.”

“And let’s tell it like it is: This would never happen at Girls High, at Central, or in the suburbs,” the teacher said. “We’re defeated. It’s exceptionally frustrating. Most of the time, we roll with the punches. But this was too much.”

The school’s culinary program, preparing for a special event, was shut down Wednesday because of the water situation, teachers said.

In an email sent to building administrators Wednesday and obtained by The Inquirer, South Philadelphia teacher Shelley Lipscomb, the school’s union representative, asked officials to intervene.

“For nearly four hours there was a single working bathroom for hundreds of students; staff also was limited to a single bathroom. As indicated in your earlier email, the water that was flowing to those ‘working’ bathrooms was not clean. Food was prepared in a kitchen without hot water, with water that also contained ‘particles.’ That food was served to students. None of these situations are sanitary or acceptable. Yet someone decided it WAS acceptable,” Lipscomb wrote.

“Staff and student health and safety was blatantly disregarded for hours. This was wholly unacceptable and absolutely avoidable,” she said.

On Thursday afternoon, school administrators sent staff a note saying that the water system was back online.

But later, the South Philadelphia building engineer indicated otherwise.

“This may have been a tad premature,” the building engineer wrote. “We currently have plumbers in the building working on an issue. I appreciate your patience while we are all working hard to get these issues resolved.”