Photo: 123RF
More than half the country's 2500 schools will have enrolment zones by the end of this year including three-quarters of those in North Auckland and Canterbury.
Principals told RNZ zones were needed to manage rapid growth but introducing or changing them could be painful and some schools have resisted the process.
Enrolment schemes introduce zones that guarantee local children access to their neighbourhood school. If a school has space, it can accept out-of-zone enrolments.
An Education Ministry briefing to the government showed it expected to add 61 new enrolment schemes by the end of this year, taking the total to 1282, slightly more than half the schools in the country.
Half of NZ's schools to have enrolment zones
Masterton's biggest school, Lakeview, was among those slated for a new enrolment scheme this year.
But the school's principal, Tim Nelson, told RNZ its board refused to participate in recent consultation on its proposed zone.
He said the school was completely full with nearly 600 children but there were three classrooms on its site that belonged to other organisations.
The board believed those rooms should be transferred to the school and the organisations using them could use empty classrooms at other Masterton schools.
"We feel as a school as a board of trustees that we have more space available in our school for students to come in from our own zone. And we thought the enrolment zone was premature and it should have been addressed first," he said.
"We're the only school in Masterton that doesn't have a zone and I can understand the reasons for us to have a zone. But it's just the way, the order in which it was done we weren't happy with as a board."
Nelson said he understood the need for enrolment schemes but they reduced families' choices.
"It's a really tough one," he said.
In Auckland, the ministry raced rapid roll growth to introduce 100 new enrolment schemes and alter 60 others in just three years.
Albany Primary School was one of the first to be changed, and principal Maree Bathurst said shrinking its zone was necessary but painful.
"What was very difficult was by removing the particular area, which was Unsworth Heights, where many of our families had come traditionally, we had grandparents who've got children who they enrolled at Albany Primary, so for them there was a genuine sense of grief and loss," she said.
Now three-quarters of schools in northern Auckland have zones and Bathurst said parents seemed to understand the way the system worked.
She said when families had more choice, many tended to unfairly judge schools and bypass them on the basis of inaccurate impressions or rumours.
With more zones and more schools full to capacity, some were seeing students who previously would have bussed out of their neighbourhoods.
In the south of Auckland, Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate principal Kiri Turketo said those families were often pleasantly surprised.
"Perception outweighs the reality for a lot of parents," she said.
"The perception versus the reality has been a bit of a surprised for our parents, our whanau and I'd like to say it's been positive, we've had positive feedback from our new whānau coming to our school."
In Canterbury, three-quarters of schools have zones.
Canterbury Primary Principals Association president Lisa Dillon-Roberts said it made managing enrolments easier.
"It is helpful because you are positioned to serve your local community," she said.
"I suppose if we were in a situation where parents and children were travelling across the city to go to different schools, that could be problematic if that were en masse."
Ministry figures showed it was hoping to add 12 more enrolment schemes in Canterbury this year with another dozen planned for Waikato and nine in both Taranaki and Tai Tokerau.