BERKELEY -- Eye doctors and university optometry students tested 150 Berkeley elementary school pupils last week for lazy eye, colorblindness, nearsightedness and farsightedness, and rare eye diseases and abnormalities.

And that was all by lunchtime.

The vision screenings, which will be given to an estimated 1,500 to 1,600 kindergartners, second- and fifth-graders in the Berkeley Unified School District this school year, will be done through a unique partnership without tapping into the cash-strapped school district or parents' pockets.

"We try to focus the exams on the little ones because oftentimes those children haven't been identified as needing glasses yet. And oftentimes, they aren't able to explain that the world is blurry," said Sarah Fisher, a coordinator with the University of California, Berkeley's School of Optometry.

Fisher is one of the doctors administering the vision screenings in all Berkeley elementary schools for the first time this school year.

Since September, more than 800 children have been screened and more than 75 youngsters were referred for follow-up care.

"Farsightedness is the problem that tends to be big," she said.

Although vision examinations are serious business, the campus screenings are completely kid-friendly. Eye charts feature circles, squares, apples and houses rather than the big Es common to adult screenings. In testing depth perception, youngsters are asked to spot the happy face. And during another test and to relax their focus, kids watch the movie "Monsters Inc." while clinicians work.

Screeners are available to discuss test results with parents.

The tests, which have been given to10,000 students in school districts across the Bay Area since 1996, have picked up hundreds of eye problems and other health problems, Fisher said.

Several years ago, a vision screener spotted what was later diagnosed as a brain tumor during a routine campus screening. Another screener noted swollen nerves -- caused by a child's recent fall from a tree -- in one test.

Normally $3.50 per student, a unique partnership between the school district, the city of Berkeley and University of California, Berkeley, School of Optometry allows city employees to pay a small premium to their health insurance plan to subsidize eye exams for the next generation.

Because school districts are mandated by the state to provide some sort of vision screening, the money-saving partnership is a win-win, said John Martin, the executive director of the Berkeley Alliance, a nonprofit group co-sponsoring the project.

"This program provides an opportunity for many city employees to access affordable vision care while at the same time supporting an enormously important service to the children of this community," said Arrietta Chakos, Berkeley's acting assistant city manager.

The plan, which is offered to retired university staff and faculty, gives employees a 20percent discount for eye exams.

What's more, low-income students who need glasses will receive a $310 "gift certificate" for prescription frames, eye screeners said.

"If (a family) doesn't have insurance, they don't have to worry. With so many people without insurance, that is the roadblock to (getting treatment)," said Mira Santos, a family services coordinator at the district's Family Resource Center at Rosa Parks Elementary School.