A Tauranga school principal says increasing house prices and renting difficulty is continuing to cause disruption with kids being uprooted to new schools.
Brookfield School principal Robert Hyndman said there had been a "new normal" of student turnover in the past few years.
"We have quite a transient community around here . . . Families are having to move out of our area - not wanting to, but having to because of housing," Mr Hyndman said.
"Now sometimes they just can't find a house [in this area] and they have to move across town or they're homeless.
"They're at other people's mercy. If you own your own house, you have control. If you don't own your house, you haven't."
Mr Hyndman said last year the school monitored a group of 27 at-risk students throughout the year on learning-related matters. A third of them were not around by year's end to complete the monitoring.
He said although this turnover rate would not be reflected across the wider school, he said it suggested at-risk learners were more likely to be affected.
Ministry of Education figures showed just five students per 1000 in 2015 were regarded as "transient" - meaning they had moved schools twice during the year. This definition would miss students who may move, for example, once per year.
Maori were far more likely to be transient, at 12 students per 1000. Asian students were the least likely, at two per 1000 students.
Transience figures were closely associated with school decile. Decile 1 students had the highest rate, at around 27 per 1000 students, with decile 10 having a rate of less than four per 1000 students.
Each decile from one to 10 had a lower transience rate than the previous one.
Mr Hyndman said information sharing between schools was sufficient.
He said the school would continue to monitor the turnover rate.
"There's not much we can do about it unfortunately.
"Just starting new schools all the time isn't ideal, so some of the kids have to uproot and that's a disruption in itself."