Monarch Screening - San Diego

 SAN DIEGO OPTOMETRIC SOCIETY SCREENS 100 HOMELESS KIDS AT MONARCH SCHOOL
 
   Exactly 100 children from first grade to high school were screened on Tuesday, March 10 at the school with 31% failing, and requiring referrals for full examinations for glasses or vision therapy.
    With a wonderful team of optometrists headed by Byron Y. Newman, OD and Bethany Welsh, co-chairs of the Public Awareness Committe of the SDCOS, the children were screened for visual acuity, diseases of the eyes, approximate correction if needed, color vision and stereopsis, along with testing for eye movements and skills.  Three residents of the Veterans Administration's Vision Care Department were wonderful additions to the team.  They were three young ODs, Erin Swift, OD; Carrie Haare, OD; and Alice Whang, OD.  Additional local optometrists included Barbara Smith, OD, who was a resident of the VA last year and offered to return, Carl Hillier, OD, an outstanding vision therapy specialist who has been in the news lately for his work with the San Diego Padres Baseball Team,, Patel Smit, OD, all ably assisted by COA liaison, Sean South, who arranged for the referrals, and gave each child screened a small gift.
   Two TV stations in San Diego were alerted to the event and showed up with a camera crew to document the event for everyone in the community to learn about.  They were Channel 10 KUSI and Channel 7.  They filmed all aspects of the screening with interviews of the doctors participating.
   Screenings are performed at Monarch School 2 times a year, since every 6 months there is almost a 100% turnover for these children.  Monarch School provides a needed service in San Diego, for with every homeless family there seem to be children who are also homeless by definition.  They get great care and schooling at Monarch, were many individuals and organizations offer services for this underserved group of children.    Tara Barrows, the school coordinator for the screenings was instrumental in keeping the children flowing through and arranging for the setting up.  For mor information on the Monarch School, please visit  www.monarchschools.org     

Monarch School is a school for San Diego’s homeless children in grades 3^rd-12^th. They operate through funding by the San Diego County Office of Education, as well as charitable groups which help fund the school’s own nonprofit organization, the Monarch School Project. Yes, we have homeless children. The San Diego County Optometric Society provides a vision screening to their students every 6 months, since their turnover is exceptionally high. When we recommend a referral for any condition, the California Optometric Assn. Representative, Sean South, is there with referral slips to optometrists who will be paid through Vision Service Plan, for a complete and thorough examination with the glasses being provided by a network of optical labs that have offered to supply the glasses to these needy children at no cost.