BEATRICE – The Assistant Superintendent for Beatrice Public Schools has been recognized with a special honor for her efforts helping students with their vision.


Dr. Jackie Nielsen was honored by Dave McBride, Program Director for the Nebraska Foundation for Children’s Vision…a group that tries to ensure every child has vision care to help them succeed.
About five years ago, the organization wrote a grant application aimed at helping provide vision care to underserved kids across the state. From that, a pilot program was held in Beatrice.


"We needed a school or school district to partner with. We didn't exactly pick Beatrice out of a hat....full disclosure, Jackie is my wife's niece...so we had kind of an in. She was the first call I made. We were looking for a school that was going to have to put in some work with us in figuring out how to do this. And, we wanted to get data from this project and subsequent programs that would help us indicate or prove the impact that providing vision care has, on kids that need the care."


The program carried out at the Beatrice School Administration building….was successful…and McBride says the impact of that effort has spread to other schools. "We've taken a template from that program, and been able to do a similar program that's benefitted about a dozen other schools and served over 350 additional kids over the last three or four years."


McBride says it will now be possible for other schools to run similar programs. "As a result of this project, we've gotten a lot more validation and buy-in from the State Department of Education to the work we're doing. They are collaborating with us now, on how we can expand the kind of a clinic we did in Beatrice, to other schools around the State of Nebraska."


The efforts have also generated data that can have an impact on public policy across Nebraska on the topic of vision care for kids. McBride says Dr. Nielsen has been a good advocate for children’s vision care.
"She came out last Fall to Kearney to make a presentation to the Nebraska Optometric Association annual conference...and shared an administrators perspective with doctors of optometry all across the state...on how they could better interface with schools and school districts in meeting vision care needs of students. That presentation and that work is going to impact the work that doctors of optometry do, with the education system across the state."


The foundation’s Nebraska School Vision Care Advocate Award was presented to Jackie Nielsen before the school board Monday night…with Superintendent Jason Alexander keeping the award secret from everyone, except for Nielsen’s family members who were then able to attend.


Also honored Monday night was the district’s employee of the month…Beatrice Public School’s third grade teacher Jasey Blackburn.

BPS 3rd Grade Teacher, Jasey Blackburn
BPS 3rd Grade Teacher, Jasey Blackburn