LEXINGTON, S.C 09/23/2021 - The Lexington One Educational Foundation recently awarded a $25,500 Health Fund Grant to the Lexington County School District One Office of Student Services to support the nurses and all students in the district. This grant will enable the district to purchase three additional vision spot screeners and flash drives for all of the devices that the district owns.
In 2019, an Educational Foundation grant purchased the first vision spot screener for Lexington District One Student Services and it originally served to test the vision of the district’s pre-K students, students with cognitive or developmental delays, and students with limited language or speech abilities. Soon after the COVID-19 pandemic became a reality, the Lexington One nurses began to use the original screener to its fullest extent possible, as it allowed a nurse to test a student’s vision while being safely socially distanced a few feet away. These vision spot screeners are also important in saving our families time and money by quickly and easily determining if vision is a concern for a student.
Since our school nurses are tasked with performing mass vision screenings of students each year in an effort to identify visual defects that may negatively affect a student’s ability to learn, having a way to accurately test vision at our schools benefits the family. Prior to these devices being used, sometimes students were inadvertently referred to a professional only to discover that vision was not the concern. With the vision spot screener a student’s vision is tested and then the device prints the results; a student can then take this report to a local optometrist or ophthalmologist if needed for further help.
Nursing and Health Services Director Amy A. Wood, RN, stated, “The three vision screeners and seven flash drives that will be purchased by the Lexington One Educational Foundation’s Health Fund Grant will greatly assist our nursing teams in testing our students throughout the district for vision problems. With the Lexington District One enrollment now being close to 28,000 students, testing the vision of all of our students is a formidable task. We really appreciate the continued grant support the Educational Foundation provides, which will benefit our students and assist with their health needs.” Mrs. Wood shared that the vision spot screeners assess the three most common vision issues: hyperopia (farsightedness), myopia (nearsightedness), and astigmatism (blurred vision) - as well as eye alignment, unequal pupil size and refractive power.
Chief Student Services Officer Jeff Caldwell stated, “We are extremely grateful to the leadership of the Lexington One Educational Foundation in making our children’s eye health such a high priority. The purchase of the screeners and flash drives will enable our school nurses to quickly and more easily identify potential vision problems for many of our students, at no cost to the families, so that these students with concerns can get the care needed for vision improvement.”
