Lakewood's Ella G. Clarke Elementary Has 2 New COVID-19 Cases

LAKEWOOD, NJ — As Lakewood Public Schools prepares to provide coronavirus vaccinations to more than 350 teachers and staff early next week, more confirmed reports of COVID-19 cases are being reported at a Lakewood Elementary School, according to a local teacher’s union.

At least two new positive coronavirus cases at Ella G. Clarke Elementary were reported this week that required the infected staff members to be hospitalized with serious coronavirus complications, the Lakewood Teachers Association said, officials told Patch on Wednesday. The new cases come just more than a week after the school reported eight positive cases among staff members.

The report of the new cases comes as the district announced plans last week to vaccinate any staff member or district employee on March 15 without requiring them to register for the vaccination with the state. District officials told Patch this week that more than 350 people had signed up for the shots over a two-day period. That number is in addition to the more than 200 employees who have previously been vaccinated as well as those who are getting shots through their own medical providers, officials said.

Staff members can get the vaccination from 2:30-10 p.m. at the Lakewood High School gymnasium. The newspaper report Tuesday night said that the Lakewood Teachers Association had not specified what role the employees have with the elementary school nor officials say what condition the infected employees are in after they were hospitalized.

A total of of four people who have tested positive at the school have needed to be hospitalized with COVID-19 complications,Teachers Association officials said in an email to Patch. The union's leadership has criticized the district for putting teachers and staff members at risk during the pandemic. The district has been open for five-day, in-person learning last summer and Kimberlee Shaw, the president of the LTA, says that district administrators have been “cavalier” in their treatment of teachers during the pandemic.

Shaw said that the district’s refusal to shift to a remote learning model has been teachers in “harm’s way since the first day of school.”

"The Lakewood Education Association believes that Clarke should switch to virtual learning in order to enforce a quarantine and thorough disinfecting of the school," Shaw wrote in an email to Patch on Wednesday. "Unfortunately, keeping schools open is more important to the district than the lives and health of its staff and students."

The district has reported that at least 131 staff members and teachers have been infected with COVID-19 between July 6 and Feb. 23. On Monday, district spokesman Michael Inzelbuch told Patch Monday that the offer to vaccinate staff members is the district’s way of looking after its “cherished staff.”

"Our staff here in Lakewood are heroes," Inzelbuch told Patch on Monday. "They've been coming to work since July and September — we don't want them to go waiting in lines like you see on the news…but (they can get shots without) the pressure, the tension, the anxiety of getting on the website (and registering).”