Continuing plumbing problems meant some kids couldn’t use the bathroom at Southwark Elementary. Parents and staff are furious.

For a time last week, all girls’ bathrooms at one South Philly elementary school were closed, with 400 students diverted to a single stall. Water leaked through the ceiling into the teachers’ lounge. A sewage backup led to an odor so strong the cafeteria had to be evacuated.

Southwark Elementary has a “systemic infrastructure crisis,” parents and some members of its staff say. And despite Philadelphia School District assurances that last week’s issues are under control and modernization is on the way for the old building, many Southwark community members say it’s a Band-Aid on a public health emergency.

“My third-grade daughter recently said to me, ‘I wish I could go to a school that has bathrooms without poop all over the place,’” Southwark parent Carolyn Huckaby said. “I’m sorry, but this is disgusting and an unacceptable environment for learning.”

Staff and parents at the well-regarded K-8 on South 9th Street have been sounding the alarm about building conditions for years, they say. Earlier this year, they appealed to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington, and other officials about problems ranging from broken bathrooms and mice and bug infestations to ventilation issues and uncollected trash.

Southwark, built in 1909, highlights a citywide problem — the underfunded district has 300 mostly-old buildings, and is struggling to keep up with significant facilities issues, from asbestos and lead to mold and failing pipes.

District officials said they had taken steps to fix conditions at Southwark, and would plan for “sustained improvement.”

The school is on a list of 159 buildings the district says it will modernize under a sweeping facilities plan now under consideration.

Southwark isn’t scheduled for modernization until the 2032-33 school year, including an addition with a new gym and classrooms, electrical upgrades, and building improvements. But that will only happen if the district secures philanthropic or state funding for the project, according to the district’s website that lays out the plans. The facilities plan calls for $2.8 billion in modernization work, with $1.8 billion coming from outside funding.

The most recent trouble began Thursday, when a series of leaks and clogs rendered all girls’ bathrooms and pre-kindergarten and kindergarten bathrooms unusable.

Four hundred students had to use a single gender-neutral bathroom.

“The lack of facilities led to significant loss of instructional time and, distressingly, caused some students to soil themselves while waiting in line,” a group of concerned teachers wrote in a letter sent to Southwark families.

Emergency repairs were made, but the issues continued into Friday, when water dripped from the third-floor bathroom into the teachers’ lounge and “hazardous sewage backups in the basement bathroom forced a cafeteria evacuation today due to the odor,” the teachers wrote. The third-floor girls’ bathroom closed periodically for more repairs.

Teresa Fleming, the district’s chief operating officer, told families in a letter sent Sunday that crews worked over the weekend “to restore the affected restroom systems and ensure that they are functioning properly.”

The backups were caused by items flushed down toilets that did not belong there, said Fleming.

“To help prevent future disruptions, we are working with school leadership to remind students about proper restroom use and the importance of only flushing toilet paper,” Fleming wrote.

But the incident illuminates larger issues, parents say.

Huckaby, mom of a third and a first grader at Southwark, was not comforted by the district’s weekend message, which she said fails to address underlying problems. It just meant she could send her children to school Monday, instead of keeping them at home — an option if the bathrooms weren’t fixed.

“This should not be the ceiling of what we would hope for,” said Huckaby. “I have general health concerns that some kid is going to catch some kind of bacterial infection from just being at school. Obviously, this is going to keep happening.”

Students routinely have to walk through mystery puddles in the bathroom, Huckaby said. And that’s not the only issue, by a longshot.

“Yes, there’s sewage coming up from the floor, but it’s not just plumbing,” said Huckaby. “There’s cockroaches and mice, and animal poop in the classrooms. It’s really disgusting.”

Huckaby and other parents are concerned, too, they said, about the way issues are being communicated — or not. Some said they heard about the issue from their children, and some said their kids didn’t even flag the issue, because it’s commonplace.

One parent said their youngest, a kindergartener, came home saying they weren’t able to use the bathroom at all.

“That’s just obviously insane to have children not be able to go to the bathroom,” said the parent, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal. “Our older child said it stunk — it smelled very very badly.”

Victoria Rosenberger, another Southwark parent, first learned of the building’s problems, including cleanliness, a year and a half ago, when her oldest was in kindergarten.

“We went to a parent-teacher conference and there were two mice, not scared of humans at all, sitting on the carpet that the kids learn on,” Rosenberger said. “The teacher said, ‘Unfortunately, this is not an unusual thing.’”

Rosenberger said she’s been so frustrated by a lack of action from the district that she’s taken to emailing Fleming and other officials directly. But she noted that some parents don’t speak English or have the time and resources to reach out to officials.

A meeting with district officials is scheduled with the Southwark community for April 7. But Rosenberger is frustrated by “everything constantly being diminished,” she said. “It’s constantly just, ‘This thing happened, but everything’s OK, we fixed it all.’”

Arthur Steinberg, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said the union had reached out to the district about the Southwark issues, and that it’s not the only school with such problems.

And though he’s glad the immediate Southwark problems were fixed, in general, “the district needs to do a better job of maintaining their buildings on a day-to-day basis — that’s no secret.”

Ultimately, temporary Band-Aids will not work, Steinberg said.

“They will deal with symptoms, but not the root cause. If you fix the root cause,” he said. “I’m sure it will happen again.”