While teachers prepare to strike this week, another fight is going on in schools, where boards, principals and teachers are putting their weight behind pay equity for teacher aides who say they want a fair wage.
Newton Central School in Auckland launched their pledge to back pay-equity in schools for support staff.
Support worker Ally Kemplen said support staff "now work with the most vulnerable children in New Zealand".
"They work with children with extremely high health needs, children with very challenging behavioural needs and children with significant learning difficulties.
"They do it all day every day, and they do it for very little pay. Schools are not funded to pay the support staff what they need to get to survive.
"Our children need us, our schools need us, and our future needs us," she said.
Principal Riki Teteina said the school is behind the campaign, with pay equity for support staff meaning "their work is valued... I think we should be paying them for what they deserve".
He said learning support, and children with learning needs has increased over the last 10 years.
"Our kaiāwhina (support workers) are extremely hard working. We could not survive without them."
The Pledge for Pay Equity campaign sees self-declaration by schools as 'Pay Equity Schools'.
Union NZEI said in July teacher aides and early childhood educations were embarking on pay equity agreements.
John McRae of NZEI said "teacher aides remain some of the poorest paid education workers, often earning little more than the minimum wage".
"They are predominantly female and have insecure terms of employment, as they are frequently funded from the school operations budget which covers everything from school maintenance, to technology and toilet paper."
NZEI President Lynda Stuart said "the days of employers saving money by underpaying female-dominated workforces are thankfully coming to an end".
"The government has made it clear that it wants to end this injustice, and this research shows that New Zealanders agree."
In December last year, the Ministry of Education agreed there was grounds for a case to begin pay equity for teacher aides, according to NZEI.
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