KEY POINTS:
Parents from the financially troubled Hill Top private school in Auckland have been left queuing up to be repaid their "refundable fees deposits" of up to $2400.
The school's nine teachers face financial uncertainty too. They were declared redundant shortly after the end of term last month, but the school says it cannot afford to pay them redundancy or holiday pay.
One teacher, 59-year-old Christine Williams, who had taught at Hill Top for 18 years, said she was owed more than $50,000. She could not start any new teaching job until February. She felt betrayed.
"I'm going to have to go to Work and Income now because I can't survive. I'm a solo parent. I've taken a mortgage holiday for three months."
The primary school in Blockhouse Bay, founded in Newmarket in 1915, blames the weakening economy for declining enrolments, with some parents unable to afford the fees after losing their jobs.
But parents say the school was badly run from 2007 and quickly went downhill. Fees are around $10,000 a year, after a hike of more than 20 per cent a year ago, and parents paid deposits of $675 when a child started at the school, or up to $2400 for more recent entrants.
One parent, who declined to be named, said the school wrote to parents last week asking them to donate their deposits, because it had no money to pay them back. That parent - and others interviewed - want the cash back.
The parent said school board chairwoman Rhonda Evans had told others, "You will have to be a creditor now."
Mrs Evans, a lawyer, said parents and teachers were in effect creditors. The school had acted responsibly by telling them what they were owed.
"We've said that as soon as we've been able to liquidate some of the assets we will be able to pay them."
She did not know the total value of parents' deposits - which had not been kept in a special account - but the school had debts of around $2 million and its land and other assets amounted to $4 million to $5 million.
The school had about 80 pupils last year, but just 16 were confirmed for term one this year. The 16 pupils' fees were kept in a separate account.
The board hoped to continue the school but it was not clear where. "We have equity within the school so we could buy somewhere else."
Parents mostly describe Hill Top as a wonderful school which their children loved, but they are upset the lay-offs came after the end of term, depriving pupils of the opportunity to say goodbye to their friends and teachers.
Linda de Knegt, of Mangere Bridge said: "I feel so sad about the kids because at no stage in this were the teachers allowed to say, 'This is probably it' to the children, 'you are not just breaking up; there's not going to be any more school."'
Her son Lewis, 6, however, was able to farewell his teacher. Because of the uncertainty at Hill Top, he had been enrolled at another school, Golden Grove, a Montessori primary school in Onehunga.
Mrs Evans said: "The board has not made a decision to close."
