An Evaluation of Chicago Public Schools' Vision Screening Program

More than 20% of school-aged youth have some kind of vision problem. The project was done as a preliminary example of how Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) can start monitoring and evaluating the program. The vision screening requirement went into effect January 1, 2008 and is designed to annually provide eyeglasses and complete eye examination to roughly 45,000 children in CPS elementary and high schools. Over 200,000 students have received eyeglasses; CPS, however, is unsure how the glasses are being utilized. Jointly, CDPH and CPS wants to encourage the regular use of eyeglasses, especially at school. We administered a survey to a network of schools that were chosen because of their strong response rate to the vision screening. At the same schools we conducted focus groups with parents, teachers, and staff that helped us gain further insight about the perceptions of the vision program. This study helped identify determinants that affect the regular use of glasses. In the future the vision program can use this data to better track the glasses that are dispersed so that vision deficiencies are no longer a distraction from education.