Last week, Conexus technicians delivered VisioCheck to the 389 students at Redd Elementary in Richmond. The technology based, comprehensive vision program identified 126 students (32%) with potential vision problems, which is well above the 25% national average. Every child will be sent home with their individualized screening report this week. The simplistic yet informative report is designed to communicate screening results with parents and encourage compliance with the recommended follow-up.
The Richmond Mobile Project is one of the cornerstone projects of the Kids 20/20 Campaign and is a collaboration with Los Angeles-based Vision to Learn (VTL). Vision to Learn will bring its full service mobile clinic to Richmond Public Schools to offer onsite eye exams-and glasses if needed-to the students found to have a potential vision problem through the Conexus VisioCheck program. The Conexus screening reports for referred students have been modified for this collaboration to double as a permission form for the on-site eye exams. Conexus and VTL hope that streamlined parental communications and school support through the collaborative partnership will result in a high parental response on program permissions and utilization of the onsite clinic.
The VTL mobile clinic will be visiting Redd Elementary in early October to provide eye exams to referred students, and those who need glasses will get to pick out their frames the same day! Glasses are then sent to the lab for processing and will be returned to students at an assembly on October 26th, which will be the official division-wide launch of the program. This process will continue through the 2018/2019 school year, eventually providing VisioCheck programs to over 26,000 students and exams and glasses to as many as 6,500!