Oh Say Can You See?

Thanks to a deeply appreciated partnership with Lions International, more NCSD students can!

Bilquist Elementary student Liam Still says he doesn’t have any trouble seeing his teacher’s directions written on the whiteboard, or the small letters and numbers scattered across a math assignment on his desk. The friendly fifth grader says his vision is just fine…at least most of the time.

“I mean, sometimes I have a little blur, but that’s okay,” said Liam. “I’d be surprised if they said I needed glasses.”

“They” are a group of NCSD staff members who, along with a team of high school and community volunteers, are currently visiting each of the district’s 18 elementary schools and using fancy cameras to check every student’s vision in just a matter of seconds. 

Technically, the cameras are called Spot Vision Screeners, and according to the Oregon Lions Sight & Hearing Foundation’s Karith Vance, are able to conduct 13 different measurements of a student’s eyesight in just three to five seconds.

“It does all those things you get on your prescription,” explained Vance, as she helped usher kids into lines. “But most of them are related to the measurements for near and far sightedness, and it also catches if a student has a gaze issue, which is really great because if left untreated, that could lead to loss of sight.”

The Oregon Lions provide the Spot Screeners, and then produce a report for each family that recommends potential follow up visits to a family doctor or optometrist.

“Yesterday we had a kiddo who was plus-four in one eye and plus-two in the other,” said Vance. “So he’s really not seeing in one eye, and he’s never had glasses, so it really helps a lot of families identify something that they may not have had any idea their kiddo was going through.”

NCSD Nursing Coordinator Claire Davis-Thran says similar cases are discovered in all North Clackamas schools, where the referral rate resulting from vision screening is about 18%, or about 3,000 families notified of potential vision issues for their students.

“We are so thankful for the Lions and everything they do for our kids,” said the grateful school nurse, who pointed out that the Lions also provide resources to make sure every family can afford eyecare and the cost of glasses. “Without these volunteers, we’d never be able to help so many students.”

Volunteer screeners include members of the local Milwaukie Lions Club like Tom Hammond, who says

he’s been volunteering and serving the community since 1978…to Adrienne C. Nelson High School senior Bismah Ahmad, who signed up as part of a Health Seminar class at NCSD’s Sabin-Schellenberg Professional Technical Center.

“I’ve always wanted to become a doctor since I was younger,” said the ambitious 17-year-old who hopes to someday practice family medicine. “And I really like meeting all the kids and saying hi to them. It’s really fun.”

The fun will continue for several more weeks for this important vision screening team. Bilquist is the 14^th of 32 schools they’ll visit in North Clackamas, the only metro-area district checking the eyes of every student in grades K-12.

“That was really easy,” said Liam, after finishing his turn and feeling a little less nervous before returning to class. “I mean, I can see really well right now, but maybe they’ll find something here.”

And if they do, Liam’s family, along with thousands of others in North Clackamas, will have first sight of the results.