KEY POINTS:
The first weeks of a new school year can be expensive for parents, but term one, 2009, could prove a struggle for schools as well as the global recession starts to bite.
Secondary Principals' Association president Peter Gall said New Zealand schools will be hoping families pay their "voluntary" donations this year despite the economy.
"Schools are cash-strapped anyway and I don't think anything is going to make that any easier."
Falling interest rates would also impact on schools' accounts as many had money invested in the bank.
They might have to look hard at the programmes they offered, but Mr Gall said discretionary spending such as upgrading uniforms or buying extra equipment would be cut first.
Many parents were also struggling, Papatoetoe South School's principal, Mark Barratt, said yesterday.
Some of the school's parents were struggling to put food on the table, and Mr Barratt said he was aware of redundancies and a general feeling of job instability among families.
He said the school would have to drop some of its "extras" this year, and was expecting to be providing breakfast for a larger number of pupils whose families could not afford food.
But the school would still do everything it could to send 110 of its Year 6 students on a leadership-style camp in the central North Island where they would have a chance to experience the snow.
The students were looking forward to it, and the wider Papatoetoe community also supported the project, Mr Barratt said.
"We are just going to have to make it happen because there's no way the parents can pay for it."
But as the school had already been rejected by traditional funders who also lacked spending money, Papatoetoe would have to be aggressive and creative for it to go ahead, he said.
Family First national director Bob McCoskrie said it was difficult for parents to receive expenses in one lump sum just as they were recovering from the holiday period.
"It's like that every year and I guess this year is going to be that much more trying."
He said the recession seemed a catchphrase for what families had been going through for the past couple of years as they deal with high mortgage repayments, increases in petrol costs and rising commodity prices.
"Families have felt under pressure for a number of years and finally the experts have put a label on it.
"They call it a recession, [but] for families it is just unfortunately business as usual."
A Wellington tradesman who commutes to work from Masterton will have to look at different ways of stretching funds to pay for items like his children's school uniforms this year. Brent Reid is faced with a $450 bill for the new school uniform at the local primary school, Douglas Park School, his two children attend. Add to that school donations of $40 and stationery packs at $20 and $26.
His wife, Sue, said she was aware other families with more children and an uncertain income were a lot worse off and some claimed Work and Income grants to help pay for the new uniforms.
The Reids are not taking anything for granted at the moment, and look for ways to cut costs wherever possible - such as walking to school rather than driving.
"[The recession] has hit," Mrs Reid said. "It's a reality and it kind of hangs over you."
