A Western Bay of Plenty school's decision to cut students attending Tauranga City schools off its bus route has one mother accusing the school of 'ludicrous” attempts at bolstering its roll.

Last week Te Puna School parents were informed from term one in 2015 there will be no bus to other intermediate schools, for year seven and eight students, from the area surrounding Te Puna School.

Te Puna School. Photo: File.

Standard to Ministry of Education policy, intermediates can only transport students on ministry funded buses out of a transport entitlement zone if permission is granted from the zones aligned school.

In this case, Te Puna School hasn't granted Tauranga and Otumoetai intermediates permission to allow students to ride on spare seats for Otumoetai College and Tauranga Boys' and Girls' colleges.

Armstrong Road resident Karen Bryant is appalled by the school's Board of Trustees decision and believes many parents in the area are still unaware of the impending changes and subsequent hardship.

She believes the school is doing this in efforts to retain numbers of year seven and eight students.

'This is wrong on so many levels,” says Karen. 'It takes away our democratic right as parents to send our children to an intermediate school that we feel suits our children better, both academically and socially.

'The whole situation is simply ludicrous, when our bus system works absolutely fine as it is. We are all paying for the current service, and happy to do so.

With a 12-year-old son at Tauranga Intermediate and a nine-year-old daughter at Omokoroa No.1 School, Karen faces the looming task of transporting both children to school come 2015.

'I have no idea [how I will do it],” she adds. 'My husband will be at work and with congestion on the roads, I won't have time to get my son to school and get back in time to get my daughter to school.

'I don't know how one school can dictate to us where our children go to school. A small country school does not socially, academically, sporting or artistically suit all children.”

A notice on the school's website says from term one in 2015, college-age students will continue to be eligible for transport from the Te Puna Transport Entitlement Zone, but students in Y0-8 who choose to bypass Te Puna School to attend another will be ineligible to utilise the college bus network or pay to use it.

'Private arrangements will have to be made to transport those students to school or into the respective schools Transport Entitlement Zone where a concession ticket can be purchased and used -if space allows,” reads the notice.

Te Puna School principal Neil Towersey says the school's Board of Trustees will not respond to any questions submitted by SunLive as parents are yet to contact the school and work through its concerns and complaints policy.

In response to the unrest the school is tomorrow hosting a brief meeting at 6.30pm to give background to the Tauranga Transport Network situation and clarify the facts around the Board of Trustees decision.

Otumoetai Intermediate School principal Henk Popping says the move, to affect about 10 Otumoetai Intermediate students, is nothing more than strategic.

'The school has a strategic goal of retaining all its students, so this is one of the steps to do that,” says Henk.

'Our Board of Trustees believe the students and families ought to have the choice to go to any school that they wish.”