In our school district, we only get one 15 minute parent-teacher conference per year, right about now. You only get the one in the spring if your child is below grade level. I always insist that we meet anyway with my older boy, who is hearing-impaired.
I do sympathize with the teachers since we have like 33 kids in the class and it's a huge time commitment for them to prepare and sit through the conferences. Our school gets out at 1:30 pm (instead of 2:30 pm) daily for one week during the conference time.