Every missed day can create a barrier to learning, connection, and student success. Addressing absenteeism requires more than identifying who is missing school. School teams also need to understand what is getting in the way and have practical strategies for responding.
That is the focus of Quick Wins for Attendance, a video series featuring Sharon Bradley and practical approaches that educators and attendance teams can use in their daily work.
Rather than relying on one solution, the series explores different strategies for understanding barriers, engaging families, strengthening intervention practices, and recognizing positive efforts.
Practical Strategies for Improving Student Attendance
The Quick Wins series covers a range of challenges that can contribute to absenteeism and offers focused strategies for addressing them.
Understand and Address Barriers
Some students face barriers that require a more targeted response. The series explores approaches for addressing bullying, transportation challenges, and chronic health conditions, helping school teams consider what may be behind a pattern of missed days.
Understanding the barrier is an important first step. It allows teams to move beyond simply tracking absences and consider what support may help a student attend more consistently.
Strengthen Family Engagement
Strong communication with families can support earlier intervention and stronger relationships. The series looks at family engagement, effective attendance phone calls, and home visits, with practical guidance for making these interactions more purposeful.
The goal is not simply to communicate that a student has been absent. It is to create opportunities for schools and families to understand concerns, share information, and work toward solutions.
Build Stronger Intervention Practices
Effective intervention requires structure as well as collaboration. Quick Wins explores Attendance Review Boards, campus attendance action plans, restorative questions, and individualized attendance improvement plans.
These approaches can help teams organize their response, ask better questions, and create clearer next steps based on each student’s circumstances.
Communicate Clearly
Written communication is another important part of an effective intervention process. The series examines the key elements of effective attendance letters, helping schools communicate concerns clearly while maintaining a supportive approach with families.
Recognize Positive Efforts
Improvement is also worth recognizing. The series includes strategies for incentivizing students and families and recognizing school staff, offering ideas for reinforcing positive efforts across the school community.
Recognition does not replace intervention, but it can complement broader efforts to encourage engagement and reinforce the importance of showing up.
From Quick Wins to Stronger Systems
The strategies featured throughout the series reflect an important principle: there is no single response that works for every student or every barrier.
School teams need practical ways to identify concerns, understand the circumstances behind them, engage the right people, and determine appropriate next steps. When these practices become part of a consistent system, teams are better positioned to respond proactively rather than waiting for absenteeism to become chronic.
Quick Wins for Attendance is built to support attendance teams with focused, actionable guidance drawn from real experiences in schools across the country. If you are interested in future topics or practical solutions to specific challenges, feedback is welcome at Sharon.Bradley@raaweek12.com to help shape a resource that makes attendance easier, more strategic, and more impactful.
Watch all episodes of Quick Wins for Attendance on our YouTube channel, Everyday Matters, and start applying these strategies in your school today.
About the Presenter
Sharon Bradley is a Texas education leader with more than 25 years of experience in student engagement, equity, and dropout prevention. She has served as a teacher, principal, and district administrator, leading initiatives that significantly reduced chronic absenteeism and built stronger systems of support for students and families. Widely recognized for her innovative and equity-driven approach, Sharon has been honored nationally for her impact in helping districts reimagine attendance and student success. She now serves as a Partner Success Manager at RaaWee K12 Solutions.