According to NZEI president Lynda Stuart, a lift on the freeze would enable teacher aides to receive a two per cent pay rise in line with teachers, without schools having to cut resources.
Paraparaumu Beach School principal Jess Ward agreed with NZEI's claim that the funding freeze negatively impacted the running of schools.
"When there's extra external pressures put on schools, like this freeze on operational grants, it's difficult.
"In schools our core business is teaching and learning, and our core focus is around school improvement in terms of academic achievement and social wellbeing.
"So when it comes to resourcing and the money that the ministry gives you, that's where it's obviously being targeted first and foremost."
With nearly 700 students and 50 staff at Paraparaumu Beach School, of which 12 are teacher aides and three work in administration, Ms Ward was among 500 school principals who signed an open letter to the government following the budget allocation.
"The money only stretches so far from my operations grant to be able to pay the salaries of my support staff.
"While their jobs aren't in jeopardy, quite often when there's a freeze from the government, they can subsequently lose hours from their jobs.
"How can you live and pay a mortgage if you have that instability?"
She encouraged the government to "consult with people at the chalk face".
"It's great that the campervan is going around so many schools because our parents need to hear it."
Ms Kaye responds:
"This Government is committed to funding schools to provide a good public education. This financial year that amounts to over $11 billion - the highest ever investment in public education.
Funding for schooling has gone up by 35 per cent since 2008/9 and operational grant funding has increased up 37.6 per cent. In fact, no other OECD country spends a higher percentage of its public funding on education as New Zealand.
Operational grants have not been frozen. For 2017 operational grants were increased by 1 per cent adding an extra $12.3 million.
That money has been distributed as targeted funding to schools who have students from long-term benefit-dependent families.
Around 99 per cent of schools received a share of this funding, on top of their operations grant. Total operations grant funding for 2017 will be more than $1.35 billion.
In Budget 2017 we committed $60.5 million to provide all schools with a 1.3 per cent increase in their operational grant funding in 2018.
This funding will also increase the targeted funding for students at risk of not achieving by 2.67 per cent, bringing the total increase for this component to 4 per cent.
The nature of operations grants funding is that school Boards of Trustees decide the best use of that money, and we've resourced Boards of Trustees to be able to support pay increases for support staff.
Support staff pay increases are wider than just operational grants. For example, we have the Funding Review currently taking place which is looking at potential changes to the way schools are funded.
Discussions are also taking place around pay equity which are ongoing.
On top of schools' discretionary operational grants, the Government has allocated more teacher aide support to schools than ever before, with significant increases in previous budgets.
Budget 2017 includes a further $34.7 million over four years to expand services for children with severe behavioural difficulties, focusing on those aged eight and under.
By providing more support earlier, such as working with an educational psychologist or special education advisor, we're aiming to help steer more young children onto a positive path in life, and also reduce disruption in the classroom which can compromise other students' learning.
We expect to increase the number of children receiving specialist behavioural support from around 5000 to around 6000 children annually."
