Kaikorai Valley College director of international programme Janette Potter said the school was rebuilding its pool of "short-term" host families for overseas students after Covid-19.
A lot of new homestay families had signed on this year. However, the school did not have enough short-term families to host overseas groups of about 20 students who came on exchange for only a few weeks.
If the school was unable to find families to host the students, it had to turn down the overseas groups.
So far, Ms Potter had turned down three schools from different countries because there were not enough short-term families available.
"It’s a shame, because getting these kids to Dunedin is really good for the city," she said.
For homestays, host families had to provide a way to and from school, which could include public transport, three meals a day and essentially act as their mother and/or father figure.
The students were vetted and were generally well behaved.
Ms Potter had been a host parent herself and said it was good because you got to make connections with people from other parts of the world.
"Being a host parent is actually amazing. It's no harder work than having your own child.
"You have people that you make friends with from all over the world, so if you ever go travelling, you can go and catch up with them."
It was very rewarding to be a host, she said.
Trinity Catholic College director of international students Mike Waterworth said since Covid there had been less interest in the community to host international students.
However, interest was building and it was getting easier to find host families.
For the school, after reaching a certain number of enrolments having overseas students can be "financially beneficial".
Two schools, Bayfield High School and Otago Girls' High School, have done mailbox drops around the city to try to attract home-stay parents.
