11-5410-002 RFP 26-0630E2-022 SPANISH LANGUAGE INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE GRADES K-6 08.26.2025.pdf

BUFFALO PUBLIC SCHOOLS PROCUREMENT OFFERING

RFP 26-0630E2-022 Spanish Language Interactive Software (K-6)

Offering Specification

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SUMMARY:

Buffalo Public Schools seeks an interactive educational platform that provides students with multiple opportunities to learn and practice Spanish literacy skills. The interactive software is created to allow students to learn at their instructional level, and to build skills at their own pace. This type of software can also facilitate the focus on small group instruction, as students will be able to meaningfully develop literacy skills in spaces outside of direct instruction from a teacher. Buffalo Public Schools is seeking a responsive, adaptable, interactive software to support Spanish literacy for students in dual language programs (Grades K – 6) with an opportunity to include 7th and 8th grades. The district is seeking a program that facilitates student growth in Spanish literacy in a way that is based in current and relevant research in the learning of reading in Spanish.

Buffalo Public Schools is seeking a comprehensive, integrated, full-featured Spanish program that uses a web-based architecture and can be used on multiple devices. Teachers, parents and students benefit from a reporting suite that disaggregates collected data allowing teachers to purposefully facilitate informed instructional decisions and provides recommended skills and activities to further work outside of the platform.

DESIGNATED CONTACTS:

Owner (Primary): Nadia Heredia, Supervisor of Bilingual Education

Buyer (Copy To): Jason Giglio, Buyer, jrgiglio@buffaloschools.org

The dates specified on the timeline of this offering are subject to change via addendum

TIMELINE:

Release Date: 09/01/2025 8:00 AM Advertise Dates:

Questions Due*: 09/08/2025 4:00 PM - Website/BONFIRE 09/02/2025

Answers Posted: 09/12/2025 4:00 PM - Buffalo News 08/31/2025

Offering Closed: 10/03/2025 4:00 PM - Contract Reporter 09/02/2025

Presentations: TBD - Rocket 09/04/2025

Tentative Award: 11/19/2025 - Criterion 09/06/2025

Public Opening Time and Location: No Public Opening

*Questions regarding this offering must be submitted via the online offering portal @ https://buffaloschools.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=openOpportunities

PROCUREMENT DATA:

Requisition: n/a

BPS Commodity Code: 032l software for instruction

Prior Offering: n/a Prior Awardee: n/a

Prior Award Period: none Current Year Value: n/a

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OFFERING DATA:

Initial Award & Contract Term: Upon board approval to 06/30/2030

Extensions: Two one-year extensions

Maximum Term End: 06/30/2032

OTHER OFFERING PARAMETERS:

Award may be split among respondents: NO

Award may be consolidated: N/A

Subcontractors may be used: NO

Insurance is required: NO

Prevailing Wage Law applies: NO

Response Surety Required (“Bid Bond”) NO

Performance Bond Required: NO

Formal contract required: YES

Proposals valid for: 90 days past closing.

SUBMITTAL OPTIONS:

Submittals may be mailed OR submitted electronically per the instructions below:

Mailed or delivered responses must include two (2) printed copies and one (1) electronic copy.

Electronic submittal is ALLOWED (and encouraged) via Buffalo Public Schools BONFIRE portal at:

https://buffaloschools.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=openOpportunities.

THIS PAGE RESERVED FOR OFFERING

SUMMARY

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1) GENERAL INFORMATION

a. DEFINITIONS:

i. “District”: Buffalo Public Schools (BPS)/Buffalo City Schools/Buffalo Board of

Education and any or all of the departments within the organization.

ii. “Vendor”, “Bidder”, “Proposer”: An individual, partnership, or corporation from whom the “District” is soliciting a response.

iii. “Contractor”: The individual, partnership, or corporation whose proposal is accepted and who is awarded.

iv. “Contract”, “Agreement”: The legal document the District issues to bind the

Contractor to provide the product and / or service described in the offering.

v. “Request for Proposal (RFP)”: A competitive negotiation process to procure the best value for the District.

b. RESPONSE AND VENDOR INFORMATION:

Qualified vendors are encouraged to submit a response for providing the goods and / or services described. If the vendor plans to subcontract any of the work described in the

Scope of Work the vendor must complete all response requirements for the subcontractor.

If a vendor plans a joint venture with another company and/or utilizes subcontractors, the vendor shall specify accordingly and complete all response requirements for each company involved in the offering response.

All responses should clearly state/include the following:

STANDARD REQUIREMENTS:

1. Name and address of company (SR-01).

2. A Project Manager who shall be the single point of contact for the contract should be identified and Resume and/or Curriculum Vitae attached (SR-02).

3. Details of how each item under “Scope of Work” will be addressed. This should take the form of a list that addresses each item (SR-03).

4. A fee for the requested services, inclusive of travel and other costs necessary to complete the contract services (SR-04).

- A list of each year’s costs/charges for each year of the offering term including potential extension periods must be included.

5. A project timeline with clear objectives, deliverables, and completion criteria (SR-05).

6. Documents supporting your company’s experience with any projects of similar magnitude (SR-06)

7. Vendor’s references if requested in the offering (SR-07).

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8. Disclosure of any information to the extent possible of any proposed takeover; both for takeovers of this company by another company, or any takeovers of other service providers by this company (SR-08).

9. Respondent status: Respondents must disclose any relevant conflicts of interest and / or pending lawsuits (SR-09).

OFFERING SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS (OR-xx):

2) PURPOSE OF OFFERING AND GENERAL PROVISIONS

a. PURPOSE OF THE OFFERING

Buffalo Public Schools seeks an interactive educational platform that provides students with multiple opportunities to learn and practice Spanish literacy skills. The interactive software is created to allow students to learn at their instructional level, and to build skills at their own pace. This type of software can also facilitate the focus on small group instruction, as students will be able to meaningfully develop literacy skills in spaces outside of direct instruction from a teacher. Buffalo Public Schools is seeking a responsive, adaptable, interactive software to support Spanish literacy for students in dual language programs (Grades K – 6) with an opportunity to include 7th and 8th grades. The district is seeking a program that facilitates student growth in Spanish literacy in a way that is based in current and relevant research in the learning of reading in Spanish.

Buffalo Public Schools is seeking a comprehensive, integrated, full-featured Spanish program that uses a web-based architecture and can be used on multiple devices.

Teachers, parents and students benefit from a reporting suite that disaggregates collected data allowing teachers to purposefully facilitate informed instructional decisions and provides recommended skills and activities to further work outside of the platform.

b. RESPONSES Any and all contracts awarded as a result of this offering are subject to the Terms & Conditions stated in the offering. The submission of any other terms or conditions by a respondent may be cause for rejection of the response.

c. REFERENCES Respondents must provide a list of a least three (3) client references and their contact information. References will be contacted at the sole discretion of the District.

d. TERM OF CONTRACT

Dates are approximate and dependent upon the award date.

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Please refer to “Offering Summary Page(s)”

3) SCOPE OF WORK

The district is seeking a New York State Common Core Learning Standards based digital

Spanish literacy intervention that supports learning opportunities for students from kindergarten through grade 6, with the opportunity to include 7th and 8th grades. Students will be provided with a compatible device on which they will use this self-guided program to practice foundational an advanced literacy skills in Spanish. Content and sequence of skills should be reflective of relevant research on Spanish literacy. Grade appropriate content and should also be adaptive based on student needs.

Students in grades K through grade 6 will be expected to use the program, which should be interactive, engaging the program independent of a teacher as it will target skills rather than curriculum content.

3.1 Data Reporting and Access: The Spanish literacy intervention program must have a diagnostic assessment that places students at the appropriate level for independent practice. The program must have an electronic method of diagnosing student levels, progress monitoring and reporting for teachers and administrators.

3.2 Research-Based for Spanish Literacy: Program follows a sequence of skills based on current and relevant research for Spanish literacy. Program targets the development of

Spanish literacy skills such as:

• Phonics/Decoding

• Fluency

• Vocabulary

• Comprehension

3.3 Program Adaptability Program regularly adapts content presented to students based upon data gathered through the platform. Content presented to students is age-appropriate at all levels of literacy.

3.4 Professional Development Plan Vendor must provide professional development to multiple audiences, including teachers, school administrators/support staff, and District administrators/support staff. Training must include navigation of platform, analysis of data provided by the platform.

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3.5 Technological Compatibility Program will interoperate with student information system, academic systems, and school library systems currently used by BPS. Students must be able to access the program on a home computer. Include vendor updates to materials, software or program at no additional cost and provide information on how often content is updated. Access to supporting tools (dictionaries, print capability).

Preferred: Contain translation ability for English Language Learners.

Preferred: Provide text to speech capabilities.

4) COURSEWARE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

4.1 The system will have administrative support/tools which shall include:

• Upload/batch-add users and enrollments

• Ability to manage users by groups

• User groups, newsletters, and other communication from vendor to user

• Support from client services department

• 24-hour technical support for end user

• Access to manage academic content areas of courses (for facilitators and administrators)

• Ability to amend student prescriptions from diagnostics

• Role-based access to designated individuals

• Ability to monitor student participation and progress, enrollment and status changes

• Conformance to Section 508 accessibility guidelines

4.2 Portal management features to include:

• Enrollment support for online registration

• Customization of portal

• Easy management of text via e-mail and upload features

4.3 Reporting features to include:

• Tracking system including notification of completed coursework, time in content, student progress in lessons, percentage of course complete, scores, submission history

• Query functions

• License usage

• Course enrollments

• Student summary including percentage of course complete

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• Technical support for reporting features

• Customizable reports that provide the following:

o Data that ties into Common Core and NYS Learning Standards o Ability to produce reports that show student deficiencies and strengths o Ability to export/import reporting to NYS and District data systems o Ability to create assessments tied to standards o Ability to track time in each lesson/activity and total time in course

• Ability to export reports to multiple formats

5) TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

5.1 The vendor’s system will support user single sign-on capability (Buffalo Schools utilizes

Microsoft’s Active Directory and supports secure LDAP and SAML/ADFS connections)

5.2 The system must be compatible with including but not limited to Internet Explorer

(version 9.0), Safari, Firefox, and Google Chrome

5.3 The proposed system must be compatible with Windows, Macintosh and Linux endpoints.

5.4 Minimum compatibility requirements include: Windows 7 and higher, MAC OS 10.5x and higher, and Linux Red Hat 5.4 and higher.

5.5 The proposed system must be demonstrably compatible with Thin Client endpoints in a

VMWare environment.

5.6 The vendor will develop system-wide, role-based security and user access security specific to the online learning management system.

5.7 The system must provide for HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) support in all functions where usernames and/or passwords are transmitted.

5.8 Vendor should provide mobile access technology and security. System should be available on most mobile devices, (i.e. smart phones, iPads, tablets, etc.).

5.9 Vendor’s system should provide the ability to maintain a log of who logged into the software and accessed the records for a particular student, including what date and time, and changes made and audit trail capabilities.

5.10 Verification that system is SSO compliant.

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5.11 Enrollment of students automatically and automatic roster upload based on Infinite

Campus SIS via Clever or SFTP File transfer

5.12 System features shall be standards-based and comply with the most recent version of the guidelines of SCORM, IMS, QTI, IMS Enterprise, IMS LIP, IEEE, LOM, iNACOL and other national and international specifications and standards organizations.

6) DATA IMPORT/EXPORT REQUIREMENTS

6.1 BPS requires an interface that accepts text or csv files connections for uploading, importing and exporting student data. BPS utilizes Infinite Campus as its student information system and the system may be required to support an automated interface with the District’s Hoonuit data warehouse.

6.2 The system must provide BPS with the ability to import data from other district-level data systems (e.g., Infinite Campus, Hoonuit, and our educational data warehouse, etc.). Imports should be automated on a nightly basis. Types of data include student demographic data scheduling data, roster information, teacher assignment information, HR data, and performance/observations.

6.3 The vendor will provide BPS with a full data extract via an automated process to load into the BPS Data Warehouse. Vendor may be called upon to partner with BPS resources to support the loading of data into other data systems.

7) DATA INTEGRATION REQUIREMENTS

7.1 The data must be fully accessible (exportable in .pdf, .txt and .csv) to the District upon installation and throughout the term of the agreement.

7.2 Report availability shall be 24 hours/day, except during scheduled maintenance periods.

7.3 The vendor will support the initial data migration and validation process.

7.4 The vendor system must integrate with other similar applications (i.e., student information, special education, data warehouse, etc.).

8) SERVICE LEVEL REQUIREMENTS

8.1 The system’s environment must be Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA compliant).

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8.2 All data collected, analyzed, and/or disseminated by the learning management system remain the sole property of and for the exclusive use of BPS.

8.3 BPS requires availability to assessments 24hours/day, except during scheduled maintenance periods.

8.4 Technical support and services to include:

o Integrity of data if server goes down o Server down time less than .03% o Adequate servers and backup to prevent database corruption and to provide restoration within two hours of data loss o Product updates for the period of the contract o Help Desk Support that will include o 24-hour assistance and availability o Reliable help desk statistics o Online, phone and email support o Easy to locate up-to-date training resources available online and in hard copy formats o Training materials utilizing multimedia (images, video, audio, etc.)

o Availability of help desk logs o Availability of help desk procedures in online and hard copy formats o The vendor system must support a data refresh nightly with access to transmitted data within 24 hours. [List all service level requirements or

“Not Applicable”]

9) TRAINING, SUPPORT, and IMPLEMENTATION REQUIREMENTS

9.1 The vendor will assign a primary point of contact as the technical resource to support the BPS account. BPS requires that primary technical resource will respond to calls or emails within 24 hours to support the resolution of technical issues and troubleshoot all other issues and requests.

9.2 During the first thirty (30) business days of deployment (“go live” testing period), BPS requires immediate availability. BPS will reserve the right to review changes in the primary point of contact assigned and to concur with the replacement recommendations.

9.3 The vendor will support the initial data migration and validation process.

9.4 The vendor will support the initial data migration and validation process.

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9.5 The vendor will provide and will manage a separate test and training environment.

9.6 The vendor will provide training and transfer knowledge to BPS IT and instructional staff to support the application in-district (e.g. system administrator, end users, trainers). The system training for District staff will incorporate a train-the-trainer approach to prepare

BPS staff for delivering training to teachers and other applicable staff as needed.

9.7 The vendor shall train a number of BPS staff on the system. This training may be facilitated online or in person and must occur within fifteen (15) days of contract. The number will be determined by BPS but will not exceed 100 staff members.

9.8 The vendor must have the capability to support virtual professional learning (i.e.

webinars, e-learning, videos, etc.).

9.9 The vendor shall provide a user guide for all users with comprehensive information related to test administration, generating and reading reports.

9.10 BPS requires close vendor support to make course modifications based on District needs.

10) PROJECT REQUIREMENTS

10.1 Project planning – vendor will provide a project plan that includes a schedule based on

Project Management best practice.

10.2 Project design – vendor will provide BPS team with full design that includes process flows and processes that outline the design of the system. The design should include detailed report mock-ups to be approved prior to development/implementation.

10.3 Development – the development of the system will be done with the BPS project team.

The vendor will provide periodic (frequency determined by BPS project team) update and stage-gate reviews. This will also include vendor created test plans.

11) EVALUATION PROCEDURES

a. Review of Responses

Responses will be evaluated by a cross functional team consisting of subject matter experts and a Purchasing representative.

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b. Respondent’s Presentations

Respondents may be required to present once, at the District’s discretion, which will include a question and answer session with the evaluation team. Questions and specific requests to be addressed during the presentation will be forwarded to the respondents.

c. Evaluation Criteria

Responses will be evaluated on a 100 point scale as defined in the table below. Cost will be calculated proportionally compared to lowest cost response.

CRITERIA VALUE

COST (must be largest component) 25

Data Reporting and Access 15

Research-Based for Spanish Literacy 25

Program Adaptability 15

Professional Development Plan 10

Technology Integration and support 10

d. Final Selection

The Board of Education and its representatives will select a firm based upon the recommendations of the evaluation team. It is anticipated that a firm will be selected by the date listed in the offering summary. Following notification of the firm selected, it is expected tha t a contract will be executed between both parties. The selected firm must be prepared to begin work upon execution of the BPS contract. The contract will not necessarily be awarded to the response with the lowest cost projection.