Funding from the Ministry of Education for attendance services is set to reduce from $1.57 million to $1.46 million a year for Southland and Otago schools.
It comes at the same time as Associate Education Minister David Seymour calls for a crackdown on truancy.
The ministry said recent reviews by it and the Education Review Office showed current spending could be more effectively invested and more evenly distributed in supporting students who were chronically absent and not enrolled nationally.
Southland Principals’ Association chairwoman and Aparima College principal Aloma Williams said it was frustrating to see the funding cuts. She expected to see its impact in the coming weeks.
"I suspect those services are scrambling to look at how best to use the funding that they have got."
She was not sure where schools would stand come the end of June when the role of attendance officers would finish.
"On the one hand, we’re trying to improve attendance — we probably don’t have the staffing to have our own attendance officers."
The service could not be dropped because students who had disengaged from school should be a priority, Ms Williams said.
"We have to put the kids first.
"We can’t just let them keep slipping through the cracks."
Principals would keep identifying what barriers stopped students from attending school and working on the truancy issue but the funding cuts made things much harder.
She said there was a lack of sensitivity from the government to schools in rural areas and the geographical barriers that existed.
"I think they’re playing with numbers and we’re dealing with real people."
The cut was inconsistent with the government’s messaging around truancy.
"If we're serious about getting young people back to school who are disengaged from school, then you put your money where your mouth is, basically."
Otago Secondary Principals' Association chairwoman and St Hilda’s Collegiate School principal Jackie Barron said Otago and Southland schools were working hard to reduce truancy and attendance officers were an integral part of that.
"It’s really hard to support the government’s initiative when the funding is being reduced."
PPTA president Chris Abercrombie said the decision was "mind boggling" at a time the government had stated a priority to improve attendance.
"Principals, who are already managing the chaotic rollout of school lunches and changes to the curriculum and NCEA, are now also having to make tough decisions about making staff redundant or trying to find the money to keep them on, using their own funds.
"It’s piecemeal, poorly timed and frustrating."
If funding needed to be redistributed across the country because the ministry’s contracting was haphazard, then it should have been increased to ensure no-one lost funding.
Ministry operations and integration leader Sean Teddy said two reviews of the attendance service showed attendance officers found it "difficult to perform the role as envisaged".
The feedback on the role had been mixed and significant improvement in services provided directly to chronically absent and non-enrolled students was needed.
As a result of the feedback, from July 1 the ministry would be reshuffling funding for attendance services to provide direct support for problem students, rather than funding the role of attendance officer.
The reshuffle meant seven of 81 attendance service contracts would have a reduction in funding.
That was because the amount the seven were currently receiving for each student was significantly higher than amounts received by other providers.
Two providers in the Otago Southland region would have reduced funding.
