Last week, Sertoma staff members and volunteers were at a handful of schools - including Moon Lake Elementary, where youngsters quietly filed into the media center to don special headphones that would make sure they were hearing all they should.

The service Sertoma provides is a great boon to schools, said Debbie Taylor, the speech pathologist at Moon Lake Elementary. Taylor, who has worked in the Pasco County School District for 14 years, remembers well the days when school speech pathologists had to do the testing all on their own. "It took so much time then," said Taylor. "Now they (Sertoma) get the whole kindergarten and first-grade done in two hours."

Sertoma has been screening Pasco students since 1998, when they started out at Anclote and Mittye P. Locke elementary schools, said Sertoma executive director Craig McCart.

Originally, screenings were provided by a grant through Burger King. For the past two years, Wachovia Bank has stepped up as sponsor.

Last year, Sertoma's two part-time staff members and 221 volunteers spent 50 days in middle and elementary schools testing 15,304 students. Out of those, 822 failed and needed further testing, McCart said.

Between now and December, Sertoma will be in Pasco schools testing prekindergarten, kindergarten, first-graders and sixth-grader, and out-of-state transfers in Grades 1-5.

Hearing loss of any kind can adversely affect a student's academic performance, language development and socialization. "It's important that students get tested early in the school year," said McCart, "Our goal is to get all these children screened between the time school starts and the holiday break, so if they do have a problem they won't have gone through most of the school year before we find it."

This year, Sertoma is asking for help - especially for east side schools. With the rising price of gas, McCart said, not as many volunteers are willing or able to travel to schools on the other side of the county. So McCart is asking for more volunteers such as Marlene Zerbst of Holiday, who for the past four years has been willing to go "to as many schools as they want me to."

"I love the contact with the kids," said Zerbst, "I'm a grandma, and all my grandkids are up north, so I get to be a surrogate grandma here."

By Michelle Miller