The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
A new program in the state’s two-year operating budget will help more Ohio children see better.
The new $10 million Ohio Student Eye Exam (OhioSee) program will provide students in kindergarten through third grade comprehensive eye exams and glasses at schools.
“Obviously, we want to catch kids early … so that they aren’t going for a long time without the ability to see in their formative years,” said Dr. Elizabeth Muckley, executive director and CEO of the Ohio Optometric Association, which represents 70% of the state’s optometrists.
It is estimated that at least 35,000 Ohio students who needed glasses did not receive them during the 2022-23 school year.
“We will change that, and this budget gets us started down that pathway,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said during a press conference earlier this month. “We begin this program by focusing on areas of the state with the highest need to make the most immediate and the greatest impact. Improving children’s vision will improve their success at school, which is a win for students, families and schools.”
An estimated 1 in 4 school-aged children have vision problems that could affect their ability to learn, according to the American Optometric Association.
The Ohio Department of Health will administer the OhioSee program, which was born out of Children’s Vision Strike Force, which DeWine commissioned in 2024.
“Children must be able to see clearly to read,” DeWine said.
Many students who fail a school vision screening never receive follow-up care. Some of the barriers to receiving follow-up care include a lack of transportation, lack providers in the area, or being underinsured.
Vinton County is the only Ohio county with no optometrists, Muckley said. Dr. Shane Foster — who has a practice in Athens, Logan, and Columbus — could be the closest optometrist for some people living in Vinton County.
“It might take people an hour to drive to my office,” he said.
iSee
The Ohio Optometric Foundation’s iSee program has been providing no cost comprehensive eye exams for children in schools for the past 15 years.
“The greatest thing about working with this program is that it seems like such a simple thing, but it can change a child’s entire life trajectory,” Foster said.
The iSee program brings doctors from the region into local schools to give students an exam. Typically, they see students who might have already failed a school vision screening and were not able to get follow-up care or students who are on an individualized education program (IEP), Foster said.
“They’re struggling in school, they’re not able to see the board, or they can’t read well, and you find out that maybe they just needed a pair of glasses, which in the grand scheme of things, is a relatively inexpensive solution to a problem that could be misdiagnosed as a learning disability,” he said.
The iSee program provides free glasses for students who need them, which usually ends up being about 85% of the students they see, Foster said. It has administered about 6,000 exams and prescribed almost 2,800 glasses, he said.
“As far as we know, it was the first of its kind in Ohio at the time,” he said.
There were 721 student exams and 603 glasses prescribed through 38 iSee clinics in 2024, according to their annual report.
“If programs like iSee and other similar programs didn’t exist, these children would never be examined,” Foster said. “They would never be treated.”
The iSee clinics visited these Ohio counties during the 2024-25 school year:
- Butler County
- Clark County
- Crawford County
- Cuyahoga County
- Franklin County
- Greene County
- Hamilton County
- Hancock County
- Knox County
- Licking County
- Lorain County
- Madison County
- Marion County
- Mercer County
- Miami County
- Montgomery County
- Morrow County
- Pickaway County
- Preble County
- Richland County
- Stark County
- Summit County
- Tuscarawas County
- Washington County
Senate Bill 36
Republican Ohio Sens. Jerry Cirino and George Lang introduced a bill earlier this year that would update the scope of practice for Ohio’s optometrist for the first time in 17 years.
Optometry is a regulated profession under the Ohio Revised Code and must ask lawmakers to make changes related to their scope of practice.
Ohio Senate Bill 36 would broaden the drugs an optometrist may prescribe and allow optometrists to perform certain in-office, non-invasive laser procedures such as removing benign lesions including cysts, styes and skin tags.
Optometrists would still not be able to perform LASIK or cataract eye surgery or perform operating room procedures under this bill.
“The need for this legislation came through many comments from patients to their optometrists,” Cirino said in his sponsor testimony back in April. “The bill also reduces unnecessary statutory and administrative red tape that only delays needed vision care.”
Twelve states — including Kentucky and Indiana — let optometrists use lasers and 22 states permit optometrists to perform eye lid lesion procedures like the ones included in S.B. 36.
“We don’t want young optometrists and graduates leaving our state to go to states that have a more modern scope of practice,” Muckley said.
