Vision Facts

1 in 4 school aged children has a vision problem significant enough to impact learning.

In economically challenged communities in Central Virginia, 1 in 3 school aged children has a vision problem.

80% of what a child learns in a normal classroom setting is through vision.

74% of illiterate adults cannot pass a portion of their vision screening.

70% of juvenile delinquents have an uncorrected vision problem.

Only 15% of children will visit an eye care professional before entering school.

Children with uncorrected visual acuity of less than 20/20 are three times more likely to fail a grade in school.

Virginia mandates school based vision screenings for all new students as well as those in Kindergarten, 3rd, 7th, and 10th grades; accounting for nearly 360,000 screenings every school year.

Our VisioCheck program screened more than 100,000 students in the 2023-2024 school year.

Since its inception, our VisioCheck program has screened more than 500,000 students.

51% of those students receiving referrals through VisioCheck will be new to glasses and an additional 19% need an update to an existing prescription or replacement of a broken pair.

Our Mobile Vision Clinic was able to provide 6,455 exams, prescribe 5,044 pairs of glasses, and refer 345 children for additional eye care during the 2023-2024 school year.

In its inaugural school year in 2018-2019, the Mobile Vision Clinic provided 551 exams. Since it’s inception, the Mobile Vision Clinic has provided 21,594 exams and prescribed 16,642 pairs of glasses.

Eye Health & Safety Information

We recommend The Vision Council’s site for general information about children’s eye health and safety. 

General Eye Questions

For general eye care and health information, we recommend Vision Center, a web guide created for those seeking information about eye care and health, contacts, glasses, sunglasses, LASIK eye surgery (and other vision correction options), and other optometry needs.