Help for every family, not another letter.

Mycelium gives each family a helper by text, in their language, that gets the income form in and the benefits it unlocks used, sorts out what keeps a child home, and finishes enrollment and consents. $5.60 a student a year, and $2.40 more only if your own filings show it worked.

Get your number Find your district

Today,
a letter.

A fifth absence, a missing income form, an unsigned consent: each one is already in your records, and today each one gets a letter. With Mycelium it gets an offer from the school instead: a helper that finds out what is actually in the way, the bus, the Medi-Cal renewal, the shutoff notice, the IEP meeting, and does the thing, with the family’s yes on each action.

For the offer, we act as your school official under FERPA. Everything after that runs on the family’s own consent, which is why the thread stays with them. You see attendance and completion, and patterns in aggregate, like forty families on one cut bus route; never a reason.

From Maya’s school · in Spanish or English

Hi — this is a helper from Maya’s school. The school noticed Maya’s missed five days. I’m not here to get her in trouble; I’m here to help with whatever’s making mornings hard. Want to try?

yes. the bus on route 12 keeps not showing up

Route 12’s been cut back since August. Your family qualifies for a free student transit pass, and the 7:10 city bus from Pine and 3rd gets her there by 7:40. Reply YES and I’ll file the pass.

YES. does the school see this?

No. The school only sees what it asked about: whether Maya is getting to school. This stays between us unless you say otherwise.

The school sees attendance improve. It never sees the thread.

What it finishes.

The jobWhat starts itWhere you see it done

The income form, and what it unlocksNo form or benefits match on file in OctoberYour Fall 1 count; fee waivers and SUN Bucks actually used

Whatever keeps a child homeA fifth absenceDaily attendance against each student’s prior year; funded ADA at P-2

Enrollment and consentsA packet, a shot record or a signature still missingThe completion flags in your student system

Each starts from data you already hold and ends in a record you already keep. Because the helper works for the family, it follows the task wherever it goes: the county for CalFresh, the health plan for the appointment, the state for financial aid. No institution can pay to be recommended.

Find your district.

Every California district and charter, from the state’s 2024–25 chronic absenteeism file and its 2024–25 LCFF funding. Type a name or pick one.

$947KPajaro Valley Unified could recover each year, worked from its own public filings

Find your district

Or try , , .

Low-income count: if one in two hundred students is eligible and uncounted, 77 students at $9,139 each, a third of it in the first year$704K

Attendance: 3,865 chronically absent students, one in four reached, 3 more days each, at $84 a day$243K

Mycelium for 15,311 students: $5.60 each, and $2.40 more only if it works$86K–$122K

Each point of attendance is worth $2.2M here. Funded attendance fell 5.7% from 2023–24, so this district is likely paid on last year or the three-year average: the gain arrives a year late, and so does the $2.40.

Counts from the state’s 2024–25 absenteeism file; values from each district’s 2024–25 LCFF funding. The reach, the days and the uncounted share are our assumptions. The first two sit below what a mailed letter alone recovered in a randomized trial (Rogers & Feller, 28,000 households). Nobody has published how many eligible students go uncounted; finding out is what a first pilot measures. The count is pooled over three years, so a newly counted student pays a third in year one. Property-tax-funded districts show $0.

First we read how you’re funded.

Your LCAP, your attendance file and your Fall 1 count, line by line: every dollar that depends on a family finishing something. The number comes first, free.

Then it rehearses on last year.

Before it texts anyone, it runs on last year’s records. You see who it would have reached and what it would have said, and you decide when it’s ready.

You offer it. The family says yes.

A fifth absence, a missing form or an unsigned consent sends an offer from you, in the family’s language. They say yes or they don’t. Your staff see only the cases that need a person.

You pay per student.

$5.60 per enrolled student a year, invoiced like any other line. $2.40 more only if numbers you certify to the state move: your Fall 1 unduplicated count, or funded ADA at P-2. A fiscal-year term, no setup fee, no minimum.

Who was offered a helper, from your own records, and whether attendance improved. Patterns in aggregate. Every rule the helper follows, in writing, before anything goes live. A monthly report your board can read.

What you see.

The address, the eviction notice, the immigration question, the sick grandparent. Any message, unless the family chooses to share it. Anything about a family that didn’t say yes.

What you never see.

The California Student Data Privacy Agreement before we see a single record. We act as your school official only to make the offer; anything sent to another agency goes on the family’s own yes. Student data never trains a model.

What we sign first.

Measured
for your board.

Students improve on their own some years, and forms come back late on their own. The measurement is built so neither counts as ours.

Offered school by school, so every month there are schools not yet offered to compare against.

Each student against their own prior year, not against a district average.

Reported monthly: families reached, in which language, how many said yes, forms finished, days recovered, by school.

If your certified numbers don’t move, the $2.40 is never due. You pay only the $5.60.

Measured in records you already keep: the Fall 1 count, daily attendance, the completion flags in your student system.

Why help works where letters don’t.

No one has run this trial with families of school-age children: one helper, the family’s own, finishing the form instead of mailing it. Yours would be it, offered school by school and measured against the schools not yet offered, so by June you know.

Now you can see it.

Send us your LCAP and your attendance file, or just your district’s name. Within a week we send back what’s recoverable, by line, and what the helper would have said to the first forty families it reached last year.

Run a union benefit fund?

Mycelium also helps funds stop paying Medicare Part B premiums that New York would pay, with each retiree’s yes. For union funds →