Accurately diagnosing a problem is only the first step in solving it.
Last year, I wrote about the lack of an optical department at Akron Children’s Hospital’s Vision Center. Many of their patients, such as my daughter, Lyra, who has Down syndrome and was born with cataracts in both eyes, have unique conditions and facial features that require specialized glasses frames. Yes, the ophthalmologists and optometrists at ACH are top notch, but without ease of access to the glasses that would correct the accurately diagnosed problems, the care they provide is not truly comprehensive. After the column published, I was asked to meet with administrators at ACH and agreed. I also received an uncharitable letter from an ACH employee who works with the surgeons at the Vision Center. That letter helped me understand I had not effectively described the dire struggle most parents face when trying to find appropriate glasses for their children, so I wrote a follow-up piece. The hospital subsequently contacted me to cancel our meeting.
Many parents wrote to me and confirmed their struggles. I also heard from those who are boots on the ground in this matter — teachers of the visually impaired (TVI) in public schools. TVIs work with visually impaired students to determine what interventions, including equipment and font size, they may need. They help teachers understand a child’s vision needs and guide the children on using any adaptive tools such as closed-circuit televisions that enlarge text, Braille and more.
TVIs underscored the widespread problem of children with vision impairment who do not find glasses that fit properly, or who don’t have any glasses at all. Decades of research has continuously shown that children with uncorrected visual impairments do not do as well in school as they would with corrected vision. They fall behind and the gap grows wider each year their vision remains uncorrected.
One day last spring, I walked out of the classroom where I tutored at Crouse, an elementary in Akron Public Schools, and was surprised to find in the hallway two of my daughter’s TVIs along with Dr. Laura Knight, an optometrist at Midwest Eye Consultants. Melanie Sargent was my daughter’s TVI in APS’s Early Learning Program and her first years of elementary school. Then, when Lyra was in the second grade, Kate Mozingo took over and has remained with her since.
These two teamed up to find a solution to a pressing problem — getting glasses to students identified as needing them. Currently, APS elementary school nurses perform vision screenings on students in kindergarten and grades one, three and five. They send letters home with those students who fail the screening, encouraging the parents to get the child’s eyes examined.
Unfortunately, the poorer a school’s student population, the less likely it is that those who failed the screening will get an eye exam. Last year, students in Akron Schools who did not access optometric care were identified by school staff. Together, Sargent and Mozingo essentially piloted a program that could, and very much should, be replicated wherever the need exists.
They contacted Wendy Giambrone at the Ohio Optometric Association. Giambone runs the association’s iSee Ohio, a program that provides free school-based eye exams and glasses to children in need. She put them in contact with Dr. Knight, who voluntarily examined the identified Crouse students and was wonderful with them all. Crouse was chosen by Sargent and Mozingo because the building’s vision screenings had the highest failure rate last year.
A couple of weeks after I ran into the women in the hallway, they returned with glasses. I remember well what it was like to get my first pair of glasses in the fifth grade after I failed a school vision screening. I spent days looking at trees with and without my glasses, stunned at how articulated each leaf was when observed through corrective lenses. To be in a room with several students having the same experience was akin to Christmas morning after Santa had been particularly generous.
One fifth grader with a substantial correction had never owned a pair of glass. I spoke with him a few days after he received his first pair from Dr. Knight and he said more than the trees, he was shocked at the detail he could now see in the floors and ground. Imagine the improvement in his ability to see and read text.
Imagine also if the comprehensive care Sargent and Mozingo voluntarily managed to provide to a small group of students was replicated for all students and, yes, Vision Center patients, who need it. How might it literally change the trajectory of children’s lives? Motivated by the struggle they see firsthand, these two women chose to do something. Who else can help solve this problem?
This was first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, August 31, 2025.
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