Virginia Jacko: Leads Miami Lighthouse’s cortical vision impairment aims

As President and CEO of Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Virginia Jacko has been committed to ensuring the blind and visually impaired, low-vision seniors and financially disadvantaged schoolchildren without resources for eye care have equitable access to education, blindness prevention programs, and vision rehabilitation training.

During her 18-year tenure leading the Miami Lighthouse, the number of program participants has grown from fewer than 500 in 2005 to over 20,000 in 2022, and she has grown the organization’s assets from $10 million to nearly $72 million due to her grant and contract expertise with public and private funding.

Before relocating to Miami for her own vision rehabilitation in 2001, she was a successful financial executive at Purdue University, where she served for 22 years, including 12 years directing financial affairs for the president and provost.

In 2016, Ms. Jacko founded and launched the Miami Lighthouse Academy, an Accredited Professional Preschool Learning Environment, which includes the first fully inclusive early learning prekindergarten for students ages 1 through 4 where visually impaired students learn along with their sighted peers pursuing the same curriculum.

With a grant from The Children’s Trust, for the last five years teams from the University of Miami research faculty and Miami Lighthouse have conducted collaborative research on the Miami Lighthouse Academy inclusion program. During that time, the inclusion model has demonstrated benefits for students, teachers, and parents.

Concerned with the large number of visually impaired adults without a high school diploma (20%), she collaborated with Miami-Dade County Public Schools to provide an on-campus adult basic education, GED Program and English as a second language instruction enabling adults to attend college and pursue a career.

Recognizing that Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) is the number one cause of pediatric visual impairment and that, unlike ocular vision impairment, functional vision in children with CVI is expected to improve with early diagnosis, appropriate assessment and intervention, she founded the Miami Lighthouse Cortical Visual Impairment Collaborative. Approximately 30% to 40% of children with visual impairments have CVI.

“The goals of the CVI Collaborative Center are to improve diagnosis and timely treatment of CVI,” she said, “and to increase awareness of CVI within both the medical and education communities as well as the general population.”

Ms. Jacko spoke with Miami Today Reporter Abraham Galvan.

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