The Moerewa School experience is a story of a community, and a people marginalised and rendered powerless in a Eurocentric education system. It is also a power counter-story. The events played out in the media, only told one part of the story. This case study uses the narratives of the Moerewa community who were actually involved, as students, parents, teachers, school leadership and whanau to tell the story from their prospective. The school's experience is mirrored in many similar schools and communities across the country, where statutory intervention, designed for schools defined as failing, should not have been the option. Their experiences, while possibly not as public, are stories of disempowerment in communities that were led to believe the education system gave them autonomy to shape an education model to fit the children.