Education leaders have warned Parliament's Epidemic Response Committee that students' education is suffering under the lockdown.
They say schools and early learning centres need to know as soon as possible what the rules will be for alert level 2.
For Massey High School Principal Glen Denham, it is seriously threatening the future livelihoods of many senior students.
"I think it's been chaotic, I think it's been unclear," he told Checkpoint.
"What we're after is trust. Trust me that I know exactly which kids to bring back to my school - our [Year] 12s and 13s," he said.
"It's like dog years. Every week that we lose ... it's like we lose seven weeks of learning.
"And our whānau, our kids have worked hard to get into year 12 and 13. They've worked their socks off, and many of them are disengaged. We don't have the devices. We asked for 491. We've got 83, and I don't know who's got them. It's just been that's been shambolic."
Denham said he was happy for Massey High School to wait its turn for digital devices so students could work from home. But when he heared that higher decile schools were getting hundreds of computers, "then I'm livid about that".
"But we've got kids at home that are not learning, they are not engaging. Some kids have got jobs, some kids won't return to school because their mum's lost their job, and I understand they've got to do some work, but we need our kids back.
"And if anyone says to you that actually this is the way of the future, Lord help us, please not let that be true, because nothing will replace kanohi ki te kanohi, eye to eye with the teacher.
"All our staff can't come back in, that's okay, you stay at home. And I think our teaching staff have done a brilliant job. But we need our most vulnerable kids, our 12 and 13s - they've got months of school. They're anxious about exams, they're anxious about NCEA, they want to come back.
"We can bring them in safely, we'll adhere to all the social distancing. And we'll do it in a safe way, but let us have the power to do it," he said.
"You can hear the anxiety and passion in my voice, because we love our kids. But I know what their future is, and I refuse for our kids to be unemployed."
'Covid-19 has taken the lives of our people. We can't let Covid-19 take our kids' education.'
Denham is urging the Ministry of Education to let every school decide how to deal best with students' education whether it is online or with limited cohorts in classrooms.
"We're the experts in our field, and we'll make sure we keep our staff and our kids safe. But we must have the opportunity. This is almost breaking point right now. If this goes on, we can't bring our 12 and 13s back for another week or two, then I lament.
"Our teachers are working their socks off, but they're working with those kids that can access online learning.
"When… almost 40 percent of our kids have not got access to devices, we've got to reach into their homes and we've got to get those kids back to school.
"We've got three generations of families living under one roof with three bedrooms. Some of those kids need to come back to school just to take the weight out of their households."
The major concern for Denham and other principals is clarity and guidance, as they wait for the Prime Minister's announcement about moving alert levels next week, he said.
He has not been consulted by education officials about what level 2 would look like at his school.
"Our attendance at year 13 was 91.6 percent. Now I think it is at less than 60 percent, of those that are engaging with lessons. And that's a worry. So, the sooner the better. We can't afford level 2 to be grey.
"The biggest threat to New Zealand is poverty. We see it at our school, low decile schools, and we've worked too hard to bring our kids and our families out of poverty.
"I refuse for our kids to be mired in that for years to come. We cannot do that."
