Consultant outlines redistricting plan, timelines and bus-routing tests for North Kingstown schools

North Kingstown’s School Redistricting Start Times and Transportation Advisory Committee met Dec. 2, 2025, to hear consultant Fred Hajish of CDGate GIS explain how the district will create parcel-based planning units, model enrollment through 2034 and test scenarios for attendance boundaries, school start times and bus routing.

Hajish told the committee his approach begins with creating small planning units — aggregations of parcels — and attaching enrollment and projection data to those units so the district can build, compare and iterate multiple boundary scenarios. “I create planning units and apply enrollment projections so you can see how edits to boundaries affect capacity now and into the decade,” Hajish said.

The presentation covered two distinct but related technical tools. Hajish said the redistricting software lets staff and advisors draw boundaries, view grade-by-grade counts and export scenario spreadsheets. Separately, a web-based bus-routing application loads students, bus stops and fleet data to generate routes and model the effects of different school start and pickup times. “We can overlay existing routes in the mapping tool, but new routes are built in the routing system,” Hajish said, describing the two-step workflow the district will follow.

Why it matters: the committee must balance enrollment, neighborhood integrity and equity while keeping transportation feasible. Michelle King, the district’s transportation supervisor, warned of a continuing driver shortage and long training timelines. “We’ve watched the decline of bus drivers,” King said, noting training takes months and staffing fluctuations from year to year limit how far the district can lock in long-term routing or large start-time shifts.

Committee members asked whether demographic indicators such as free or reduced-price lunch, ESOL counts and test-score data could be used to pursue more equitable attendance areas. Hajish said those factors can be included but cautioned against drawing lines that create or reinforce economic or racial segregation; he noted districts have faced legal challenges when boundaries inadvertently followed such contours.

On schedule, Hajish and staff reviewed a Gantt chart that sequences internal scenario-building in early 2026, interactive web tools and community engagement beginning in September 2026, recommendations submitted to district staff in December 2026 and a school-committee adoption target in March 2027. Hajish said community outreach was delayed until the school year to avoid low summer participation.

The advisory committee agreed to review planning units and scenario drafts internally (with the option to convene a smaller subcommittee to vet proposals) and to receive spreadsheets and map exports of public comments when the district posts scenarios. The chair confirmed the committee’s stated preference is to keep grade configuration at K–5 and to consider grandfathering current fifth-graders where feasible.

No formal changes to boundaries or start times were adopted at the Dec. 2 meeting; the committee moved the public-comment period to the end of the meeting and adjourned after brief public remarks about investing in bus drivers and preserving current student placements. The next advisory meeting to review early scenarios is expected in February 2026, and substantive public engagement is scheduled to begin in September 2026.

Provenance: The consultant’s presentation and the committee’s timeline discussion were presented by Fred Hajish; committee concerns about drivers were raised by Michelle King and other advisory members during the meeting on Dec. 2, 2025.