Program Funded by Tobacco Tax Is a Vision Thing

Oxnard optometrists are set to launch a program next month for kindergarten and preschool students, providing eye exams designed to catch and correct vision problems before they hinder school performance.

Using Proposition 10 tobacco tax money, the eye doctors are working with Oxnard school district officials to set up a vision clinic at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in the city’s La Colonia neighborhood.

The project, in the planning stages for more than a year, received a $105,000 grant this month from the Oxnard group charged with distributing money generated by the 1998 initiative that levied a 50-cents-per-pack tax on cigarettes for child development programs.

The money will support the clinic for three years, during which time optometrists plan to test hundreds of youngsters for a range of vision problems that could affect how well they do in school.

“If you are going to send them to school, you might as well take the time to figure out whether they are going to get any good out of it,” said 82-year-old optometrist Albert Forbes, an Oxnard resident who has made it his mission to establish free eye clinics for the poor.

Forbes and fellow optometrists Thomas L. Wolf and Adolfo Murillo will staff the clinic at least once a week.

“We don’t want anyone to be overlooked in any manner, shape or form,” Forbes said. “These kids are going to get comprehensive eye exams just the same as if they were the sons and daughters of the wealthy in Beverly Hills.”

Vision Problems Can Slow Progress

An eye doctor for more than half a century, Forbes knows well the link between vision and learning.

Many youngsters often are unaware they have vision problems, even as they struggle with classwork or to keep pace with their peers. And those problems can quickly build in youngsters a reluctance to do the simplest of tasks, such as tracking words across a page.

The vision clinic will test students for everything from depth perception to color discrimination. Clinic staff will help students, parents and teachers learn how to correct or compensate for vision problems. And a referral network will be in place for youngsters who need follow-up care, such as through the Lions Club, a service organization dedicated to better vision for the disadvantaged that sponsors programs to provide free and low-cost glasses.

Kindergarten and preschool students in the Oxnard district currently undergo a vision screening, but it’s nothing like what is planned at Cesar Chavez, said Linda Butcher, the district’s coordinator for health and nursing services.

“We’re going to have an opportunity to give kids a totally thorough vision examination before they even begin to learn and before they have a chance to become frustrated with school,” said Butcher, who helped create the project.

Forbes and others hope that once the clinic is established at Cesar Chavez, it can be duplicated at other Oxnard campuses. And they hope that funding will be available to replicate the project at schools across Ventura County.

The county receives nearly $12 million a year in Proposition 10 tax revenues.

Of the total, $1.6 million a year is being funneled to the Oxnard Neighborhoods for Learning Collaborative, a collection of school, community and faith-based agencies responsible for distributing the money within the Oxnard Elementary School District boundaries.

Committee Supports Preventive Care

School district Supt. Richard Duarte, who heads the Oxnard group, said that although some initial funding decisions have been made, the committee is busy laying the foundation for an ongoing network of services and programs.

He said the optometric clinic is a good example of the kinds of projects the committee wants to support.

“What we intend to do is much more than a screening,” he said. “This is really a comprehensive approach to target students before they reach school so we can identify problems and head them off before they become barriers to learning.”