KEY POINTS:
Education officials have no plans to set up a transitional fund to help schools hit by sudden changes to the amount of cash they get from the Government.
The primary and secondary unions asked the former Education Minister Steve Maharey for the fund after the five-yearly recalculation to decile rankings this year.
One in four Auckland schools has had three months' notice of a cut in funding next year.
Parents are expected to make up the shortfall.
Ministry of Education spokesman Iain Butler said officials would work on a case-by-case basis to help schools struggling with the change.
"The ministry is not in the business of leaving schools high and dry."
He said a range of measures - such as financial advice or top-up cash - would be offered, as they had after previous changes.
Mr Butler said schools in need should expect details of assistance by early next month.
One primary school in Rodney District is facing a 20 per cent cut in public funds after leaping five places in the decile rankings. A school in Otahuhu will get $80,000 less.
Readers of nzherald.co.nz yesterday were divided on the issue of school funding.
"Nearly every school I have come across that cries poverty has in fact been given enough to provide the core education we expect," wrote one.
"It's just that schools are encouraged to want flash gymnasiums, music suites, movie equipment, school magazines, design studios, artificial turfs."
Retired principal Denis McCarthy wrote that parents should refuse to pay for any compulsory curriculum subject.
"Schools do not have enough cash and parents are expected to meet the shortfall. I believe that parents and boards of trustees have been much too nice about this - if the state makes education compulsory, the state should fund it adequately."
Mr Butler said schools still got the same notice this time that they had after previous reviews and some in the industry had mistakenly thought a year was the norm, based on the lead-in time of a policy change two years ago.
Mr Maharey apologised to teachers at a conference in September after a slip-up that led to the NZ Educational Institute and Post Primary Teachers Association not being consulted in the decile review process.
