2026 Events

School Year 2025-2026 Vision Screening

Vision pre-screening by the RI Lions clubs began soon after the school year 2025-2026 started. Once most of the school districts where the Lions clubs do the vision prescreening was complete by the end of October, 2025, the equipment used (Welch-Allyn Spot cameras) was available for the RI Lions Sight Foundation (RILSF) members to start doing vision prescreening in the towns where the local Lions club do not have the resources or time to do this volunteering.

This school year in RI, 37661 students (kindergarten, grades 1-5, 7, and 9) at 180 schools were screened with 6157 referrals (recommendations that the student see a medical professional to have their eyes tested); this is a 16% referral rate for RI. The number of students screened increased by 7.6% over the previous year. The data for the last 3 years by town is shown below.

All screenings are coordinated with the school nurse or medical coordinator at each school. If a referral/recommendation to see an eye professional is giving for a student, the nurse may rescreen the student and, if the nurse comes to the same conclusion, will notify the student's parent(s) of this recommendation.

For the 2026--2027 school year after the school year begins, school nurses should send their request for vision screening to rilsfvisionscreening@gmail.com with the following information:

# students that will require vision screening;
3--4 days after the middle of November that are suitable to do vision screening, approved by the school's administration,

Nurses, students, and parents can refer to the information on RILSF Vision Screening in Schools about the vision screening program the RILSF runs. On this webpage, there is also some information about the RI state medical insurance program (which the RILSF understands will cover eye exams, glasses, and replacement glasses for all RI K-12 students). If this insurance is not suitable for some reason, any visually impaired person can request assistance to get glasses at Eye Exams and Eye Glasses .

The RILSF also offers 2 overnight camps for visually impaired children. The camps are run by a PPSD teacher with many assistants to help the children. Parents and nurses should check out CAMP MAUCHATEA if you have a child or student who may benefit from these camps. The children who attend these camps get the opportunity to experience camps in a similar way that children without vision issues enjoy overnight camps. Check Events to see reports of the Camp Mauchatea sessions.

Student from the Brown University Ophthalmology program helped out with the vision screening this school year and were a valuable resource.

The volunteering done by the RI Lions and RILSF members doing vision screening is greatly appreciated.

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2026 Events

School Year 2025-2026 Vision Screening

For the 2026--2027 school year after the school year begins, school nurses should send their request for vision screening to rilsfvisionscreening@gmail.com with the following information:

# students that will require vision screening;

3--4 days after the middle of November that are suitable to do vision screening, approved by the school's administration,

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Student from the Brown University Ophthalmology program helped out with the vision screening this school year and were a valuable resource.

The volunteering done by the RI Lions and RILSF members doing vision screening is greatly appreciated.