Parent Teacher Conferences

In the district I worked at in New York, kids had half days for a few days so teachers could meet with parents in the afternoon. The district I work in now used to do that, but not anymore. We had to schedule them after school. I have 40 of them to do since I am meeting with both classes I see. Luckily the other teacher and I are doing them together. Tomorrow, we have 9. At the rate we have been going, we will be lucky to see 5 of those parents. It's amazing how many haven't showed up. We even called someone today, the mom said she would be there, and she didn't show up. Another parent didn't show up and we rescheduled her and she still hasn't showed up! Now I know why my students don't hand things in. Since their parents clearly don't care, why should they? It's beyond frustrating because I can't teach kids to care. I can only attempt to teach them how important handing things in on time is even though some of their parents don't do that themselves.