The headlines created last week by the parent who refused to pay the "voluntary" portion of her school fees to the integrated school Rathkeale College, in Masterton, once again brings into sharp relief the vexed issue of school funding.
Opinions on this particular case will vary.
Karen Bock knew what she was signing up to when she enrolled her son in the school and, moreover, was more than happy for him to enjoy whatever additional advantage accrued to its pupils through the imposition of significant voluntary fees.
On the other hand, if fees are to be labelled "voluntary", should they not be exactly that? Rathkeale College is integrated - formerly a private school - and thus arguably has a "special character" based on religion or educational philosophy.
While it has compulsory fees of around $2000 a year, and voluntary fees of $1000-a-term, parents throughout the country are having to pay increasing "donations".
Few will have amassed the $13,000 total that Ms Bock has, and one of the obvious questions to be put to the school is how it allowed the deficit to grow so large before taking steps to secure the "debt".
When action did eventuate, it included the suggestion to Ms Bock that the school should "secure a mortgage charge against your property pending its sale on terms to be mutually agreed between you and Rathkeale College".
Such a proposal is not only heavy-handed but is untenable in law.
As Education Minister Anne Tolley said in a speech last month, specifically referring to integrated school fees, "Voluntary donations are just that, voluntary. If unreasonable demands are being placed on parents, they must stop."
And while the school is free to make a case that Ms Bock is morally in the wrong, that should be the limit of her persecution.
Not everyone will sympathise with Ms Bock, but the school, too, has succeeded only in attracting headlines for the wrong reasons.
Notwithstanding those headlines, the debacle is a sideshow.
The great majority of schools in this country are state schools supposedly providing a "free" education.
Each receives from government an operational grant and teachers' salaries package according to a roll-based formula, property grants, and a consideration weighted towards its decile ranking to account for socio-economic disparities.
For many years now it has been a mantra of school boards and principals that the grants they receive are insufficient to provide for anything other than the most basic of teaching; that their allotted budgets do not take account of the full costs of a modern education.
But it is possible to turn the argument on its head: our schools are living beyond their means - an inevitable consequence of the competitive model which rewards schools financially for achieving higher rolls, and the increasingly unrealistic expectations of parents.
To compete with rivals so as to attract greater rolls, more teachers and better funding, schools embellish their prospectuses with ever more extravagant claims and proposals - sports academies, field trips, overseas trips, cultural activities, special events, more bells and whistles in the IT department - and then feel compelled to claim "voluntary" donations from parents to make ends meet, at the same time complaining their operational grants are insufficient.
There might be a greater degree of sympathy for the schools were the focus of their advertising to rest on academic excellence rather than the plethora of extras that seem a compulsory part of today's education system.
Nonetheless, it is possible to feel a twinge for the local board and principal locked into a vicious circle of promote, spend, and claim - insomuch as hopping off the money-go-round that is today's funding structure, while remaining accountable to the community over the pursuit of "excellence", is virtually impossible.
Schools do need to look at their "donation" systems, which have become voluntary in name only.
Stories of the social pressure, harassment and sanctions visited upon non-complying parents are legion.
Yet nor is the answer always to go cap in hand to the Government for funding fripperies.
Where might it all end?
Parents, too, in these straitened times need to narrow their expectations.
A little restraint on all sides would go a long way.
