Systems Struggling to Address Student Health

John Vega of the nonprofit Heiken Fund helps Macy Salazar, 14, pick out a pair of glasses at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Miami. The fund is part of a coalition that works to get glasses to students who need them. (Photos By Joshua Prezant For The Washington Post)

It was in the mid-1990s that Turkel started the vision program almost by happenstance. Instrumental in opening a primary care center in the low-income Miami community of Overtown, Turkel said he was told that the vision screening he was planning for children was already being done by the school system.

But then he learned that the results of school screenings -- mandated by the Florida legislature to be performed several times during a child's schooling, along with tests for hearing and scoliosis -- were essentially sitting in drawers. The school system could tell anybody who asked how many kids had failed vision screenings, but nobody was getting the kids help.

Turkel decided to change that.

"Once the kids who need help are identified, there had to be a way to go to the schools and provide them with whatever they needed," said Turkel, president of the Miami-based nonprofit Turkel Resource Foundation and co-founder of the University of Miami business school's Center for Nonprofit Management.

He worked with the school system and a coalition of others, especially the Miami-based nonprofit Heiken Fund, to make sure children in high-poverty schools were regularly screened in school and received glasses. Turkel purchased a bus and packed it with equipment to transform it into a traveling vision laboratory.

Initially, kids got "instant eyeglasses," put together on the spot after their vision tests from lenses pulled from an inventory to match their needs. Later, kids were able to choose from a selection of frames -- increasing the percentage of students who actually use their glasses. Now they receive their glasses within days of the screening. A child with an eye problem that needs special attention is directed to a doctor who has agreed to take the cases pro bono.

"The glasses make a big difference," said Tina Simmons, health technician at Lillie C. Evans Elementary School in Miami. "Many kids have bad vision, and the parents just say to them, 'Just tell the teacher to put you in front of the board.' "

The program, which at its height has served about 6,000 students a year, has faced financial hurdles but is operating today under a new grant and with the help of 14 organizations. All schools in the 360,000-student system are now covered by the program.

Garcia said she has seen the program work at two schools and is a big fan. "A lot of kids don't like nerdy glasses, but these aren't. The kids who have gotten glasses love them."