Parent-led boards of trustees have been a feature of the New Zealand education system for almost 30 years. Over that time there have been consistent reports of difficulties in getting parents to participate on the boards of low-decile schools. However, there appears to be little research on what influences parent participation on boards of trustees. This gap provided the impetus for this qualitative study, which investigated the perceptions of five board chairpersons from South Auckland low-decile primary schools about the factors that encourage or constrain parents' participation in the boards of trustees of low-decile primary schools.