Oh, first of all, I truly respect this kind of teaching work. My only experience is in graduate or post-graduate level teaching. So really don't what is ideal in your situation.
Forced attendance would work if students cared for their education but their parents didn't. That's just not the case, even if students don't care because their parents don't, it just doesn't fix the problem.
Sometimes it was implemented as a direct role-call. Some classes have a “participation” component which is really just a fuzzy attendance grade. Some classes have random graded in-class quizzes, which also function as a stochastic attendance check.
Generally I hate all of these things IMO low attendance is the instructor’s last, most dramatic barometer to indicate poor instruction, and subverting this measurement is a terrible idea. But it is definitely different for k-12!