Fort Worth students get free eye exams, glasses through Alcon partnership
Thousands of Fort Worth students will get free eye exams and glasses, thanks to a new partnership between the school district and a nonprofit eye care provider.
This school year, the Alcon Children’s Vision Center has sent teams of eye doctors to schools in the Fort Worth school district to find kids who need glasses but don’t have them.
Texas students are required by law to undergo regular vision screenings in schools. But not every child who needed glasses was able to get them, said Dr. Rick Weisbarth, president of the Alcon Children’s Vision Center board.
“Only a small percentage of the students who failed the screenings got ongoing care,” Weisbarth said. “We were identifying a problem, but then not being able to fix it.”
The vision center hired a full time staff of six providers to visit pre-K and elementary school campuses to offer screenings, eye exams and prescription glasses, all for free. The services are geared toward students who don’t have health insurance or vision insurance, or who face other barriers to getting the vision care they need.
Dr. Kendall Stout, lead optometrist for the center, said he has treated kids whose parents were shocked to find that they didn’t have to pay for their child’s care. He said he treated one high school student whose soccer coach referred him for an eye exam because he was having trouble seeing while on the field. The student was able to get a free exam and glasses, and got back to the soccer field with the glasses he needed, Stout said.
Alcon, a vision company founded in Fort Worth, celebrated the program Monday with a grand opening of its new clinic, next to Western Hills Elementary School.
The clinic, at 8376 Mojave Trail., used to house a school-based health center operated by JPS Health Network. After JPS decided to close the majority of its school-based health centers in 2021, Fort Worth school district officials decided to propose the idea of a permanent vision center at the location of the Mojave Trail clinic, said Michael Steinert, the district’s assistant superintendent for student support services.
Access to glasses and eye care for children is essential, said Dr. Jennifer Deakins, vice president for the Vision Center’s board.
The vision center is hoping to reach all 35,000 students who are enrolled in pre-K through fifth grade in the Fort Worth school district. Older students will be able to visit the physical eye clinic for care, and all students can go to the clinic for follow up appointments. All services and glasses provided by the clinic are free.
This story was originally published January 9, 2023 at 5:51 PM.
