255 students in 75 minutes

          I have assisted with Vision Screenings before when I was living in West Valley and Jenna was going to school in Taylorsville.  That was probably five years ago.  There was a nurse at one station and at least three other stations with six volunteers, perhaps seven (someone must have served as a runner).  Vision screenings were done in the hall in front of the auditorium.  Two aides worked in teams.  One would stand at the eye chart and point to pictures or letters and the other would sit and record the results of each test of the student - they would also have to find each student and mark the set of duplicate directories that we were all given.  Yesterday's testing went so much smoother.

          The Elks Club brought this sophisticated equipment that would read each child's eyes.  Each class had been given stickers to pass out and most students who came through the line had a sticker.  Some did not have them and were pulled aside to wait for the man who seemed to be in charge.  The students would stand in line and sit at one of five chairs when they became available. All of this was done in the library.

          Three members of the Elks club were receiving information from the stickers and taking pictures.  Two of our aides were recruited as well after having had a crash course on working the devices.  Initially, I was going to be one of those aides that would be helping to test, only one of the devices was not working properly. Another aide was trained on how to work it once the problem was resolved.  I would have liked the opportunity to sit down.  At the same time, I would have had a hard time trying to read the stickers as half of the library was not well lit (I think for proper use of the equipment),

          We were done with all thirteen classes in 75 minutes!  Record time.  I really don't know how many students were present today.  255 is just an estimate.  There were several who were absent yesterday as the weather was too cold or else it may have been just to get a jump on the holiday weekend (that seems to be a pattern). 
         Yesterday was a pretty good day overall.  The rain did not start pouring until after school was out.  It poured hard.  After eight-plus months of our rivers being dry or extremely low, they now look to the point of overflowing.  We shall see.

          Snow at the top of the hills yesterday morning.  It appeared the rain had removed most of the snow before nightfall.