In another case in Opunake, Taranaki, a 15-year-old girl continued to play truant even after her father was fined $300 plus court costs for his daughter's failure to attend school, the Taranaki Daily News reported.
The father said he felt "caught between a rock and a hard place" because despite his best efforts his daughter skipped school because she felt picked on and had suffered severe personal setbacks.
Under the Education Act, every child must be enrolled at school until the age of 16. If a student is permanently excluded for misbehaviour, they must be re-enrolled elsewhere, be it at another school, alternative education provider or the Correspondence School.
And though schools, truancy officers, police and other agencies have joined forces in a bid to stem the tide, the number of children ditching class and missing out on vital learning remains stubbornly high.
LAYING DOWN THE LAWAccording to Ministry of Education figures from the 2013 annual attendance survey, 73,500 children miss school each day - about 17,500 of them without justification.
Truancy peaks on Fridays and Mondays, as do "justified absences".
The total national absence rate was 10.1 per cent (73,500 students each day) - up slightly from 2012 but similar to previous years.
Secondary Principals' Association president Tom Parsons says schools go to inordinate lengths to keep kids at school.
Taking parents to court is the last resort and should be seen as schools using the "last arrow in their quiver".
In cases of non-attendance, school boards have the power to prosecute parents for truancy that is "ongoing, persistent, parent-condoned and when all previous interventions to support a return to school have been unsuccessful", the Ministry says.
Parents face fines of between $30 and $300 for a first offence, and up to $3000 for a second or subsequent offences.
In some cases the Ministry provides school boards with financial assistance towards prosecution costs, and has done so 30 times since 2010.
Mr Parsons says it's good that court cases are occasionally taken and publicised.
"It shows parents who might keep the student out of school that's not what society expects because society realises that the expense going into the future is going to be huge."
Parents came under fire earlier this year when a Southern Cross Travel Insurance survey revealed nearly one-in-five had taken their child out of school during term time for an overseas holiday to take advantage of cheap deals.
However he chronic reasons behind truancy are often much more sobering.
Mr Parsons says cold winter conditions and hard-to-dry school uniforms sometimes contribute to truancy, although schools have systems to mitigate those circumstances, providing free, dry uniforms, or arranging teacher aids to bring children to school.
A real struggle is with parents deliberately keeping a child home to look after younger siblings while they go to work, at a cost to that child's education.
Police truancy check ups sometimes uncover groups of truants hanging out at one student's house where the parent finds it acceptable.
Students they pick up say they're tired, sick, their uniform isn't clean or they haven't got a uniform at all.
Parents' excuses include keeping the child home because they are tired from staying up too late "playing PlayStation".
Northland's truancy rate is among the nation's highest, with nearly a third of students at some Whangarei high schools absent on any given day.
Last year top police brass joined frontline officers, teachers and community groups in a truancy blitz, paying surprise visits to the homes of known truants and hauling them off to class.
Although Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft points to a link between truancy and youth crime, police say there is "no generic rule of thumb that if they're truant they're out doing burglaries".
WHAT'S BEING DONE?District truancy services were overhauled in a controversial shake-up at the start of last year.
Under the former system, district truancy services were responsible for smaller geographical areas.
The Integrated Attendance Service created 18 new larger regional service providers throughout the country.
The overhaul has faced criticism from principals, who say it is unrealistic to deliver comprehensive services on a regional basis and the new providers have missed ministry targets to report back to schools within five days of investigating a student's absence.
Community anti-truancy programmes such as Rock On, introduced in Hawke's Bay in 2012, have had some success, enlisting the help of police, Child Youth and Family, Ministry of Education, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, Truancy Service and other local youth service providers. The programme works with schools to identify chronic truants, hold meetings and monitor students and their families.
Other schemes involve police officers hand-delivering letters to chronic truants' parents reminding them of their responsibilities and the threat of prosecution if their child continues to ditch class.
But ultimately, Mr Parsons says it comes down to parental awareness about the need for education.
Education is the "passport to the future", he said.
"It's the only form of social mobility in New Zealand and more and more parents are realising that.
"If they want to get out of where they are, if they want quality choice later on, they recognise that learning is actually earning."