A schoolhouse at $60 a week comes with a teaching principal job at Tokirima School. Pictured are the students, board of trustees chair Mike Tibby, in blue, and relieving principal Keith Jackson, in black.

The salary's solid, the community might help stock the fridge, the house is low rent and it's an hour and a quarter from the ski field.

Yet a small rural school hasn't been able to find a new principal, despite looking for all of 2015.

A so-called glut of teachers has made headlines but Tokirima School, near Taumarunui, can't find one for its 12-student school.

Supplied Tokirima School is about 30 minutes from Taumarunui and is the 'focal point' of its community. Pictured are the students, relieving principal Keith Jackson, back left, and board of trustees chair Mike Tibby, back right.

Relieving principal Keith Jackson, supplied through the NZ School Trustees Association (NZSTA), is into his third term holding the fort.

The school is 30 minutes from Taumarunui and has advertised in the Education Gazette three times with minimal response, board chair Mike Tibby said.

"Maybe it's just because they think we're way out in the sticks," he said.

"Maybe they just have to come here and see what it's like... It's not a bad place."

The successful applicant can expect "full support" when they arrive.

"Everyone chips in and helps each other out. We're a real tight-knit community. If they needed anything, like meat or firewood, or things like that - it's just a real good little community," he said.

"[The school] is very well resourced, modern, got wi-fi and computers and everything that a big school in the city's got. Comfortable accommodation, like walking distance away."

The commute would be fewer than 200m from a house with free internet - for a minuscule $60 a week.

And according to the NZEI Primary Principals' Collective Agreement, the role would have a salary of about $78,000.

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Lovers of the outdoors would be in their element.

"We're an hour and a quarter from the Whakapapa Ski Field, two hours to Taupo, two-and-a-half to Hamilton," Tibby said.

"The focal point of the area is the school. There's no shop or anything. It's just a rural area really, farming all around."

It's a sole charge position, meaning the principal also teaches the 12 students, who are from years one to seven.

But there is a teacher aide and release time each week.

So far this year, the NZSTA emergency staffing scheme has had Jackson into the school as a relieving principal but he can't stay forever.

Jackson said the job could be a great career step for a budding principal, who would come into a "hugely supportive" community.

"[The applicants] probably need to have some experience of leadership, although they'd be keen to have a beginning principal here," he said.

"It's a lovely little community and the kids are fantastic - willing to learn, keen to learn."

"The strength that this place has is just the integrity of the community. They're fantastic people and they find it hard to understand why the place wouldn't appeal to people."

Parent Michelle Potts found recent headlines about teacher oversupply ironic, given Tokirima's long search.

"We just need a principal teacher. We have to get one. We can't sit in limbo forever," she said.

"Down here you don't get your hour traffic jams... We're just in the middle of everywhere but we're not the big city."

There were different challenges in being the principal of the smallest schools, said Grant Burns, principal of Northland's Tauraroa Area School.

"You've got the sole charge principal who is not only teaching the students but having to navigate Novopay, having to look at property functions as well," the NZ Area Schools Association member said.

"So, even though the numbers might be smaller, the job still needs to be done and done well."

It could also be hard to get experienced boards of trustees but leading a small school was part of the career path for primary principals.

NZ Principals' Federation past president Phil Harding said there were many different contexts for rural roles and, for applicants, it could be about finding the right fit.

"There are areas where they don't have too big a problem and there are areas where increasingly it's hard to find staff," he said.