You can't divide yourself; you are but one person. Lack of parental support is a real problem, but one we all must learn to deal with. To help these students, build the support into the lessons. If they are doing a big project, take the whole class to the media and help teach them how to research. Allow extra time in class to do things like this if they finish early. I would also take a look at the homework being sent home. Send home practice of a skill learned already and try not to send home very difficult work, or work that requires help or extra research that a student can't do on their own. Create study guides,rubrics, and directions and tips in writing for them if you do send home work that may be complicated. You could also check with administration if you could start a special club for students interested in extra learning. For parents-I would wait until we had a meeting and ask if they were providing support at home. You may find that they are having difficulty with it as well. Some parents have a very hard time helping because they don't know how. If this is the case, you could invite them to a parent resource night that gives really great tips and training. Another reason may be a language barrier. You may find that the child's parent primarily speaks another language, which could also make it difficult to help with homework as not all of it translates easily. You could work with your ESOL person on campus for help with this situation. Or, you may find, that the parents are overwhelmed and really do not have time. They may work two jobs, be single parents with other time constraints. This is the situation where you may bring it to their attention that the student needs support at home, but don't push too much. While it is very important that parents be involved in their children's school career, it is also important for us to know the reasons behind why they are not. We need to understand some of the difficulties the family and student may be facing to understand how we can better help them in our classroom.

Parental involvement is a very tough subject. As a teacher, you cannot place the responsibility on yourself to be the parent figure for each of your students. I would try to establish a positive relationship by making a phone call home to let the parents know the positive things that their child is doing in class. Sometimes the parents want you to reach out to them on a positive note, instead of hounding them to get involved in their child's education. Also, some parents have a strong feeling that their child's education is the sole responsibility of the teacher. They feel like it is not their job to educate their child. As teachers, we need to encourage the students to show their parents that they want them to be involved. It could potentially be more effective if their own child asks for attention and participation.

It is important to meet with the parents to try and find out why they are not involved. Once you know more about the situation you could pick your battles. If there is a subject or a concept that the student is struggling with you can point out this to the parent and give suggestions on how they can help their child. You could also get resources together to help them help their child. The parents may just need help helping their child.

The lack of parental involvement is very common in schools today. Unfortunately, we are not able to divide ourself into two people. A possible solution is to pair the student with a buddy in the classroom that mastered the task at hand. You can also request that the parents sign homework each night. At my school, we set up home visits or community visits at the beginning of the school year. This helps with building parent-student-teacher relationships. A nice way to tell parents again is just to bring it up in a conversation which explains the student's strengths and then tell the parent not to forget to help at home to continue success in the classroom.

I know in many districts, depending on location, they have a mutual contract set up among the teacher, parent, and student that is signed by each and states that each will do their part to optimize student learning. Maybe sending home a letter stressing the importance of parent involvement that is to be signed and returned may help. Include in the letter tips for busy parents as well as parents that may feel they are incapable of helping their child with the schoolwork. I think the nicest way to consult parents is by stressing the importance of their child's education, especially in today's society and to not bring up the fact that they ignored you.

It is important to give the student all the support she needs during the school day. Provide checklists for home, mini anchor charts to help with explanations for help while doing homework, and after school help if possible.

Unfortunately you cannot force a parent to be involved or make them want to. If you get them in a conference, give them as much advice and tips as you can.