At least five counties, most in the rural northeastern corner of the state, don't have optometrists, who do vision exams and prescribe lenses to correct problems. Even in urban counties, parents wonder why they should pay $100 or more to replace the eye screenings their children get free or as part of routine medical check-ups.

Tiffany Taylor, a single mother from Raleigh, is worried about coming up with money to pay for an exam for her 4-year-old son, who will start kindergarten this year.

Taylor, 28, said she can't afford health insurance and is certain she won't qualify for money the state has set aside to help some parents pay for tests.

"I don't know why they put this hardship on people who can't afford eye exams," she said. "I usually trust my pediatrician to tell me if there's a problem or not. That's what they're there for."

The state's pediatricians agree.

The N.C. Pediatric Society is part of a coalition of education groups, doctors' lobbies and advocates for children and the poor who have asked legislators to repeal the law before school starts this fall. Most children won't need the eye exam, opponents say.

Legislators will have a chance to change the law or scrap it when they return to work in May.

In the meantime, Ken Wells, the school superintendent in Perquimans County, is trying to figure out how to get the 80 or so children expected to start kindergarten in his district this year to see an optometrist when the county doesn't have any.

In some other counties, children who will be required to get eye tests this year outnumber optometrists by more than 300 to 1.

Most Perquimans children will have to travel about 30 miles to see an optometrist, Wells said. And he points out that school nurses check children's vision.

"The need for this is just not apparent," Wells said.

Last year, House Speaker Jim Black, an optometrist, had the eye exam law written into the budget.

"Anybody who does not understand the importance of vision for children starting in kindergarten is not interested in kids," said Black, a Democrat from Mecklenburg County.

Kindergartners who don't have their eyes tested by an optometrist or ophthalmologist -- a medical doctor who specializes in the eyes -- before the first day of class would be shut out of school. That's a consequence more severe than the penalty for missing shots to prevent measles or polio; children who don't have all their immunizations by the time school starts have 30 days to get them.

But bludgeoned by complaints, Black said this week that he would push for some flexibility, so children who haven't had the eye exam on time can still go to class. Additionally, he would lift the requirement that eye doctors with North Carolina licenses do the exams. Some residents of rural border counties often cross state lines for medical care.

But school boards still don't like the law, even with those changes. They argue that pre-kindergarten health checks and immunizations, required by law, are available free at county health departments, no matter how much money a family has.

Requiring parents to pay for eye tests sets up a financial hurdle to education, said Leanne Winner, lobbyist for the N.C. School Boards Association. Black's proposal to give schoolchildren six months to get their eyes checked rather than requiring exams by the first day "only postpones the inevitable," she said.

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