P
Prevent
Prevent Chronic Absenteeism
Identify attendance concerns early and intervene before absences become a pattern or escalate into truancy and court involvement.
Partnering with school districts to keep students in school
PRESENT! FamilyAttendance & AdvocacyProgram
Keeping Students in School. Keeping Families Supported Before Problems Escalate.
We meet families where they are — with support, not judgment — and we keep students in school before chronic absenteeism takes hold. That's the whole idea: the earlier we step in, the more problems we prevent.
Five pillarsEarly Intervention•Family Navigation•Parent Education•Student Coaching•Measurable Attendance Outcomes
Who we serve
Every child deserves a reason to show up — and every family a caring hand to help them get there.
The problem & why now
Chronic absenteeism starts quietly and compounds quickly.
Too many students are missing too much school. Chronic absenteeism — generally missing 10% or more of school days for any reason — means roughly 18 days in a typical 180-day school year. And the effects add up: chronic absence in the early grades is one of the strongest predictors of later struggle, and it compounds across years in ways catch-up work struggles to reverse.
The causes are rarely "not showing up." Most chronic absence is driven by solvable barriers: transportation, illness and health access, unmet basic needs, housing and food insecurity, a parent who can't get time off, or a student who has fallen behind and now avoids a place where they don't feel they belong.
Punitive responses push families away. Early, supportive intervention pulls them in.
10%+
of school days missed
The threshold that defines chronic absenteeism — excused or unexcused.
18 days
in a 180-day school year
What that threshold equals — and how fast small gaps become big ones.
Early
is the word that matters
Most causes are solvable barriers — if a caring adult steps in before the pattern hardens.
We're not here to tell your district what its own data shows. District leadership knows its attendance story best. PRESENT! offers a partnership model for turning that knowledge into early, personal, family-level action — and a way to measure whether it moves the numbers.
The PRESENT! approach
PRESENT! is an approach — letter by letter
The brand name isn't just a label — it spells out the philosophy behind everything we do. If the Five Pillars are the staffed model we deliver in schools, this is the mindset that guides it: the “how” behind the “what.” Each letter is a promise we bring to every family.
R
Reach
Reach Families Early
Build trusting relationships with families and connect with them before attendance problems become a crisis.
E
Empower
Empower Families & Students
Give families the knowledge, resources, coaching, and confidence they need to overcome barriers and support consistent attendance.
S
Solve
Solve Attendance Barriers
Identify the why behind absences—transportation, housing, safety, academics, basic needs, family circumstances—and develop individualized solutions.
E
Engage
Engage Schools, Families & Communities
Create collaborative partnerships so everyone involved is working toward the same goal: keeping students connected to school and positioned for success.
N
Navigate
Navigate Resources & Systems
Help families understand policies, access community resources, and navigate the systems that can be overwhelming when they're already dealing with challenges.
T
Thrive
Help Students & Families Thrive
Help students and families thrive.
The intervention model
Five pillars that work as one system
PRESENT! isn't a menu of disconnected services. Each family is met where they are, and the pillars wrap around them as their situation demands.
Early Intervention
We don't wait for chronic absence to become a file. Using attendance data and the family liaison's knowledge of who is quietly struggling, we identify students at the earliest sign of disengagement — and respond with support, not a letter home that reads like a threat.
Family Navigation
Many families want help but don't know who to call or how to navigate the buildings and forms. Our navigators build a trusted relationship, hear the real barrier, and walk families through solving it — housing, food, health, transportation, and school-based supports — following up until the loop closes.
Parent Education
We partner with parents as the experts on their own children. Honest, practical sessions on the real cost of missed days, how attendance connects to reading and graduation, and how to make school feel safe and wanted — building knowledge and confidence, never blame.
Student Coaching
For the student who has fallen behind and now avoids school, our coaches show up consistently. They build a trusting relationship, find the root cause, reconnect the student to what makes school worthwhile, and help them catch back up. One consistent, caring adult changes the story.
Measurable Attendance Outcomes
Everything we do ties to a number we can defend. We commit to tracking and transparently reporting attendance rate change, reductions in unexcused absences, family touchpoints, and coaching sessions — with honest baselines, honest counts, and honest results, wins or lessons.
How they fit together
A student isn't a spreadsheet row. A single coordinated team per school acts as one: the navigator opens the door and earns trust, the parent educator strengthens the home, the coach reconnects the child, early intervention decides who and when, and the outcomes pillar tells us week by week whether it's working.
The pilot design
A focused 90-day Founding School Pilot
We're not proposing another referral. We're proposing a hands-on, family-walking-with-us model — and a small, deliberately focused cohort is how we prove it works before scaling.
Small enough to serve well. Large enough to produce a meaningful, honest signal by day 90. Every claim here is about what we will do and measure — never a promise of results we haven't yet earned.
2
schools
selected with district leadership
15
families per school
depth over breadth
90
days
intake to outcomes
The 90-day roadmap
1
Weeks 1–2
Intake & Setup
- Formalize data access and information-sharing agreements
- Align with school leadership, the liaison, and front office
- Identify the early-intervention cohort from data and staff knowledge
- Begin warm, honest family outreach
2
Weeks 3–4
Outreach & Enrollment
- Individual family meetings that build trust and surface real barriers
- Co-create a family support plan for each household
- Enroll and orient the cohort of up to 15 families per school
- Launch parent education and partner agreements
3
Weeks 5–8
Engagement & Coaching
- Family navigation active — closing loops on care and support
- Consistent student coaching in every student's corner
- Parent education sessions delivered on schedule
- Weekly liaison check-ins; monthly baseline comparisons begin
4
Weeks 9–11
Deepening & Course-Correction
- Review individual progress; adjust plans where barriers persist
- Double down on what's working, troubleshoot what's not
- Maintain coaching and navigation intensity
5
Week 12
Review & Reporting
- Compile the full outcomes report against the baseline
- Deliver a closeout briefing to school and district leadership
- Present options for extending, expanding, or adjusting the model
Measurable outcomes
We run on evidence — and report it honestly
These are the metrics we will measure and report, grounded in a baseline set at intake and measured against it at closeout. No pre-claimed results — wins or lessons, told straight.
Attendance & academic markers
- Attendance rate change versus the school baseline
- Reduction in unexcused absences
- Change in on-time arrivals where relevant
- Indicators of re-engagement, such as completed missed work
Engagement & service
- Family engagement touchpoints — calls, meetings, navigator check-ins
- Barriers identified and resolved — housing, food, health, transportation, benefits
- Parent education sessions delivered and attendance at them
- Student coaching sessions delivered and continuity of contact
Fidelity & learning
- Enrollment fidelity — families actively engaged versus enrolled
- Qualitative lessons — what families told us about barriers and what worked
- Recommendations for scale and for year two
A pilot that teaches us what works and what to adjust is a success. That's precisely the value of trying this small before scaling.
The partnership ask
A true partnership — clear on both sides
This is a working partnership, not a one-way request. Here's what each side brings.
Your district provides
- Data access & information-sharing for a defensible baseline
- Referrals & cohort identification with a consent-based pathway
- A named school liaison at each pilot school
- Meeting & outreach facilitation, including space for parent sessions
PRESENT! provides
- Trained program team on the ground — navigator, educator, coach
- Full 90-day delivery, intake through reporting
- Family-level barrier-closing, walking with every enrolled family
- Parent education & student coaching curriculum and materials
- An honest outcomes report delivered to district leadership
- Low risk to the district — a focused pilot, not a large line-item
Why us
Led by someone who has been on the front lines of family support
Rasheda J. Muhammad
Prevention Educator • Community Impact Strategist • Nonprofit Founder
Her work rests on a simple professional conviction:
Problems are easier to solve early than to repair late — and families respond to support far better than they respond to ultimatums.
As a prevention educator, she has worked to reach people before crisis. As a community impact strategist, she builds programs around data and defensible outcomes rather than good intentions. And as a nonprofit founder, she knows what it takes to start something from nothing, earn a community's trust, and deliver on a commitment.
Prevention educator
Reaching families before crisis, not after — watching for the earliest warning signs.
Community impact strategist
Building programs around real, defensible outcomes — not good intentions alone.
Nonprofit founder
Starting something from nothing and earning a community's trust, one delivered commitment at a time.
Families everywhere show up for their children when someone shows up for them. PRESENT! is built to be that someone.
Let's talk
We're ready when you are.
The best next step is a 30–45 minute working conversation — with the right people in the room — to walk through the model, identify candidate schools and the cohort profile together, align on data access and outcomes, and decide together whether a pilot makes sense.
Walk through the model and hear what would make it fit your district
Identify the two candidate schools and the right cohort profile together
Align on data access, consent, and referral pathways
Agree on the outcome metrics that matter most to district leadership
Reach out to Rasheda J. Muhammad by email or phone to schedule a working conversation. From there, if and only if it makes sense, we move toward a pilot agreement and a start date.
Prevention education that empowers students to make informed choices and build healthier futures
Alcohol & Vaping Awareness
Knowledge for today. Confidence for tomorrow. A healthier future for every student.
Sometimes, the most important thing we can give a young person is the information they need before they’re faced with a decision that could change their future.
We believe every student deserves the opportunity to feel supported, informed, and confident enough to make choices that protect the life they’re building.
Our interactive, prevention-focused Alcohol & Vaping Awareness sessions go beyond simply telling students to “just say no.” We meet students where they are—with honest conversations, real information, and a judgment-free environment where they can ask questions without fear of embarrassment or punishment.
Students learn what’s really inside a vape, how nicotine and alcohol can affect a developing brain, the early warning signs that something may be becoming a problem, and practical ways to respond when peer pressure makes saying no difficult.
Because prevention isn’t about assuming the worst in our young people. It’s about believing enough in their future to prepare them for the moments that could put it at risk.
Our educational content is informed by established public-health guidance and resources, including information from the CDC and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).
We don’t just want students to know the risks. We want them to know their worth—and have the knowledge, confidence, and support to protect their future.
For middle and high school students
Fits naturally alongside our family-support work
Pairs with parent-education sessions where helpful
Prevention-focused, with a real help-seeking path