Addendum #1 BID NO.: RFP

Transcription

1 FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION BUREAU OF CONTRACTS, GRANTS AND PROCUREMENT MANAGEMENT SERVICES 325 West Gaines Street 332 Turlington Building Tallahassee, Florida Addendum #1 BID NO.: RFP School Readiness Child Assessments March 28, 2019 This addendum is being issued to provide the Answers to Questions submitted timely by vendors during the Question and Answers period. Please be advised all questions are keyed as submitted. Deltek 1. Is there an incumbent vendor that currently supplies this assessment? If yes, could I possibly obtain some vendor information such as the vendor name or the contract documents themselves? ANSWER: Yes, the following assessments are currently approved for use in the School Readiness program; Galileo Assessment Technology Incorporated, COR Advantage High Scope Educational Research Foundation and Teaching Strategies Gold Teaching Strategies. All contract documents can be located on the Florida Accountability Contract Tracking System (FACTS) website. 2. Is there a value or budget amount currently associated or reserved for these assessments at this time? ANSWER: No. Budget will be made available as willed to develop API connections with the statewide system. John Hopkins 3. Would it be acceptable for a respondent to solely submit a formative 36 month to 72 month assessment (3-K), and exclude the B-2 component? Or does the respondent have to submit one entire assessment covering the entire age/grade span from B-K? RFP Addendum #1 Page 1 of 8

2 ANSWER: The Office of Early Learning (OEL) will only accept and review comprehensive assessments capable of assessing all School Readiness children (Birth to Kindergarten). 4. Is it possible for multiple vendors to partner in one proposal to meet the B-K assessment requirement? For example, one partners provides the B-2 component, and the other partner provides the 3-K component? ANSWER: The assessment must be comprehensive (birth to kindergarten) and seamless to allow the customer one point of entry and the ability to work with one company. 5. Does the B-2 component of the described assessment requirement have to cover all learning domains as outlined in the Florida Early Learning and Development Standards, or can it cover some (not all) of these standards (i.e. just social emotional, physical development, approaches to learning, etc.) ANSWER: All of Florida s Early Learning and Developmental Standards (Birth to Kindergarten) must be covered. 6. Is preference or additional vendor scoring points given to applicants who include MBE participation? Or does MBE participation not affect the consideration of a proposal? ANSWER: No, MBE participation is not considered in this procurement. 7. Will the Early Learning Coalition pay the vendor directly for the implementation of a selected assessment? ANSWER: The end-user or customer is primarily local coalitions and child care providers who elect to voluntarily participate in the child assessment differential. ELC s may support a particular instrument, however child care providers are under no obligation to utilize that instrument. Given that the majority of customers will be child care providers, payments will be handled from private customers (child care providers) to the Contractor without the participation of OEL or ELC s. 8. Will the Florida Department of Early Learning pay the vendor directly for the implementation of a selected assessment by an Early Learning Coalition? ANSWER: See question Is the state reimbursing the Early Learning Zones who select and implement an assessment, or will the Early Learning Zone use their individual budget to select and pay for the implementation of an assessment? ANSWER: We are not familiar with the term early learning zones. For the purpose of responding to this question, OEL assumes this is referencing early learning coalitions. Individual child care providers will purchase assessments from their own funds. OEL will not reimburse for assessment instruments since the child care RFP Addendum #1 Page 2 of 8

3 providers will be paid a differential for using and meeting the child assessment minimum implementation requirements. 10. In order to help plan for implementation capacity, does the state have guidance on levels of interest from Early Learning Coalitions, especially given that this is an optional assessment? ANSWER: The level of interest will lie in the child care providers who will choose to participate and at this time we do not have accurate estimates of potential customers. The market will be wide open and we encourage the selected Contractors to learn more about the School Readiness Program and the payment differentials and help spread the use of developmentally appropriate child assessments. 11. Given the proposal text below, will the approved assessment vendor(s) have the discretion to require a minimum number of students and teacher/providers in an Early Learning Coalition before implementing the assessment? ANSWER: No, the majority of customers will be private childcare providers who will select their instrument of choice. In some instances ELC s may choose to support a chosen instrument however child care providers are under no obligation to utilize that instrument. 12. Does the state have a preferred report for communicating the child s progress to parents in the Family Portal, or will existing report features within vendor s assessment system be sufficient? In other words, will data from the approved assessment vendor have to auto-populate into a state report template for parents, or can the assessment provider ensure that existing report features within the system are made accessible in the Family Portal? ANSWER: Existing Contractor reports will not be eligible for transfer to the OEL Family Portal through the API. Data from the Contractors must populate the selected data fields determined by OEL. OEL will work with Contractors after the selection process to facilitate API data exchange. 13. Is the respondent able to submit different cost proposal versions based on expected usage from an interested party or an Early Learning Coalition? In other words, can the responded provide tiered pricing in the cost proposal, based on expected usage from an interested party or Early Learning Coalition, where unit costs decrease with higher expected usage? ANSWER: Proposer s must provide the price proposal on a cost per child or per participant basis in the format detailed in Attachment B - PROPOSER S PRICE PROPOSAL. Tiered pricing will not be considered. RFP Addendum #1 Page 3 of 8

4 Kaplan 14. The description for the Online Administrator Training states that it shall be included in the per/child subscription cost. The description of the requirements for the Online Teacher/Director Training does include this same statement. Should the Online Teacher/Director Training cost be included in the per/child subscription cost? ANSWER: Yes. 15. For Attachment N, the Family Portal table, do assessment item numbers go in the last column? Or what type of information is to be included in the last column? ANSWER: Proposers should supply their indicator descriptor that correlates to the listed domain. 16. For item 5.5 (p. 22), stating that the assessment must be available in both English and Spanish, does this mean that the test items themselves must be in both languages, or that supports (materials, procedures, manuals, reports, etc.) for Spanish-speaking children and families must be available? ANSWER: Test items must be in both languages Service Level Agreement Performance Standards Table, SLA Ref#4 in the SLA Metric (s) column it states that Text messages shall be responded within one hour of receiving text. Can that initial response text be an automated response? ANSWER: Yes. 18. Please confirm the nature(s) in which parents will access child assessment information. Will parents only receive reports and data from OEL s SSIS (as mentioned on p. 8)? Or will parents also access reporting directly from a portal of the contractor s (as mentioned in item 6.8 on p. 23)? ANSWER: OEL s Family Portal is not a substitute for the reporting capabilities associated with child assessment instruments. Parents should be able to and will be encouraged through OEL s Family portal to access the full reporting available through the Contractor s website. Teaching Strategies 19. If a bidder is able to provide all the required data, will OEL be able to determine the levels at which to interpret said data? For example, if a bidder shares a child ID that matches to its system, may we assume that OEL will be able to identify said child ID at the regional and local level? ANSWER: Yes, however OEL will work with Contractors after the selection process to ensure data validity through the transfer and reporting capabilities. RFP Addendum #1 Page 4 of 8

5 20. Will OEL consider a family app free of charge to parents that includes multiple family facing reports? If so, is the OEL requiring a parent portal connection within their SSIS in addition to the family app? ANSWER: The Family Portal will not be integral with any Contractors system but rather receive the requested data and incorporate that information into OEL s child assessment report. Within OEL s Family Portal the parent will be encouraged to access and utilize the Contractors system to access the full cadre of reports and supports available to the parent. 21. Would OEL accept a static alignment and report to appear in the SSIS, even if it isn t Florida-specific nor would it generate a Florida-specific report, or is there an expectation for greater connectivity? Would parent visibility of report be in SSIS? ANSWER: No, the Family Portal report for child assessment will be generated via data transmitted through the API and OEL will correlate that data into the Family Portal child assessment report. The families will be encouraged through the family portal to access each Contractor s assessment system to view the full reporting capabilities and supports that are available. 22. How will dependencies related to API work that is internal to OEL be considered as a bidder works toward the July 1 timeline for completion of the API? If the bidder is expected to finish API development work by April 30th, how would it be able to complete the API work without communication with the OEL team or access to the technology, especially given that the RFP states that the contract will not be awarded until April 30th? ANSWER: Dates referenced in the RFP are best faith estimates for Proposer s. OEL has developed the API and after Contractor selection OEL s IT team will work directly with Contractors to begin the technical work. 23. Will requesting exceptions to the requirements of the RFP result in automatic disqualification for the award? Alternatively, might the Department accept the response of a Proposer requesting exceptions to the requirements but reject the exceptions? In the latter case, would the Awarded Proposer be obligated to accept the Award without exceptions? Will there be a negotiation phase in the solicitation process prior to contract execution? ANSWER: Proposals are scored based on the Proposer s proposed solution to the requirements stated in the Scope of Services. Proposals that do not meet minimum score are disqualified. 24. Could you please define sub-contractor in the context of this RFP, including the associated level of involvement in the specific performance of the Contract as opposed to services provided to Contractor that support the general and ongoing administrative functions of the Contractor? RFP Addendum #1 Page 5 of 8

6 ANSWER: See Attachment C- Office of Early Learning Standard Contract for the contractor s responsibilities when electing to use subcontractors. The Proposer s proposal should indicate if and where a Proposer intends to use a subcontractor to perform contractually-required services. The Contractor is ultimately responsible for achieving contractually-required service levels, including any work performed by its subcontractors. 25. Could you please clarify how the amount of the award will be calculated, considering that other organizations will have the opportunity to purchase products and services under this contract? Would the 10% performance bond only apply to purchases made directly by OEL? ANSWER: The performance bond is to be applied to the API development cost and any future customization costs funded by the State. 26. The FL code with which the assessment solution must comply discusses Identity Management and Interoperability with third parties. Is there an expectation that the assessment solution will use a Florida State Identity Access Management Solution for authentication? Or, if the users are only within the bidder s system, will the bidder be required to implement Multi-Factor Authentication with password complexity requirements? ANSWER: Proposers should have some kind of identity management in place. Example: unique user ids/passwords so they know who is accessing their system. Generic user ids/passwords that are shared with multiple people are not allowed. At this time OEL will not be enforcing the multi-factor authentication. 27. Could you please define and provide a specific example of what you mean by capture and customization of provider site license status and provider types? ANSWER: There are distinctions between providers in Florida (Registered Family Child Care, Small Family Child Care, Large Family Child Care, Child Care Facility, licensed, licensed exempt) however, OEL will be able to gather that information by matching the child s unique ID and the providers name. 28. Could you provide examples of the type of notification expected? ANSWER: A teacher should see a reminder that notifies them when an assessment is due. This could be a Contractor system generated but at the very least the system should have a way of flagging a child and visually notifying or alerting the teacher when they access the Contractor s system. 29. How does the OEL define web-based online learning community? ANSWER: A website that allows users of that system to share information, tips and concerns. One example would be through a mediated online, shared experience such as a chat room or a forum. RFP Addendum #1 Page 6 of 8

7 30. Could you please clarify if the expectation is to provide ongoing technical assistance 7 days a week or only Mondays through Fridays? ANSWER: See Service Level Agreement Performance Standards Table Ref # Could you please clarify if the expectation for project-related questions to be answered via , through phone calls, or both? ANSWER: See question Could you further clarify utilization? What does it entail? How does OEL define utilization within the assessment solution? ANSWER: OEL will only pay differentials for SR children eligible (provider participating in differential and child eligible for assessment) to receive assessments during the assessment periods (Period One August 1 through October 31, Period Two November 1 through January 31, Period Three - February 1 through April 30). The Proposer s system should provide the number of completed assessments conducted for eligible children at the end of each assessment period. The system should also identify the teacher conducting the assessments. 33. Could you further define active assessment? Is the expectation that teachers document at least one or a defined number of ratings for one or more children in the assessment solution? ANSWER: The report should reflect the number of users that accessed the system during the report period. This is used to demonstrate system availability during the reporting period, not assessment compliance. 34. Will login history be acceptable for measuring activity? If not, what criteria would OEL want to define activity? ANSWER: Yes, login information including the assessors address and time of login is acceptable. 35. Please define the parameters for reporting of children assessed during the report period. If a teacher is only able to complete one assessment within a specific report period, will that be sufficient for OEL reporting purposes? ANSWER: Yes, the report should contain all completed assessments for children eligible to receive an assessment during that time period. 36. Could you define calibration supports? How does it differ from Inter-rater Reliability? ANSWER: An example of calibration supports would be where the Contractor provides online access to services, materials or test used for maintaining assessor certification and/or interrater reliability. RFP Addendum #1 Page 7 of 8

8 37. If a company that offers an assessment that is being implemented in School Readiness programs across Florida, would failure to respond to and/or be approved thorough this RFP force those programs to use a different tool that is approved through this new RFP process? ANSWER: A Customer conducting child assessments pursuant to a School Readiness contract is required to use a child assessment from the OEL-approved list of child assessment(s) selected through this RFP. 38. Could a bidder price the professional development per session rather than by participant? ANSWER: No. Potential proposers have 72 hours from posting of addenda to protest the requirements of each addendum. Failure to file a protest within the time prescribed in Section (3), or failure to post the bond or other security required by law within the time allowed for filing a bond shall constitute a waiver of proceedings under Chapter 120, Florida Statutes. YOUR PROPOSAL WILL NOT BE COMPLETE WITHOUT THIS PAGE SIGNED AND INCLUDED! Vendor Name written: Authorized Signature: Authorized Signature - written: Mailing Address: City, State & Zip Code: Telephone: Fax: Address: RFP Addendum #1 Page 8 of 8