2-Communications Systems - Specifications.docx.pdf

SCHOOL DISTRICT U-46

Proposal Specifications for

Communications Systems (Mass Notification, Website & Mobile App)

Due Date: March 12, 2026

PROPOSAL SPECIFICATIONS AND SCOPE

COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

SCHOOL DISTRICT U-46

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

School District U-46 (“the District”) is seeking proposals from qualified vendors to provide district-wide communications systems including mass notification services, website content management systems, and mobile application platforms. The awarded vendor will work closely with the Director of Communications and Community Relations in order to provide services beginning July 1, 2026. Pricing will be requested to determine the appropriate contract term: one (1), three (3), or five (5) years.

TERM OF AGREEMENT: The term of this Agreement shall commence on July 1, 2026 and shall continue for the number of years awarded and mutually agreed upon thereafter (“Term”), unless terminated sooner as provided herein.

APPENDIX DETAILS: All appendix documents are located within the Public Documents section of Euna Procurement, formally known as Bonfire.

● Appendix A: Feature Compliance Matrix

PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS

The following statements represent the items that are required to be submitted or acknowledged for those wishing to participate in this RFP. The requirements listed below are not negotiable.

The submitter’s submission must include a response to each Requirement listed below. Failure to include a response to any REQUIREMENT may result in a disqualification as the submitter may be deemed not responsive.

REQUIREMENT #1: Title Page Include the firm’s name, address, name and telephone/fax of contact person.

REQUIREMENT #2: Letter of Transmittal State names of the person(s) who will be authorized to make representations for the firm, their title, addresses and phone numbers. Submitter must acknowledge the firm does meet all of the requirements set forth in the RFP.

REQUIREMENT #3: Pricing Submit detailed information stating your company’s pricing to provide services as requested in the Request for Proposal.

● Pricing is required for one (1), three (3), and five (5) year periods.

● All submissions must be all-inclusive, with installation, and handling costs incorporated into the total bid price.

● Taxes shall not be included in bid pricing, as school districts are exempt from applicable taxes, including but not limited to Retailers’ Occupation Tax (state and local), sales tax of any kind, service use tax, federal excise tax, and any other applicable taxes.

REQUIREMENT #4: Methodology, Implementation and Transition Plan Describe in detail the approach or methodology in which your company will provide services as requested in the Scope of Work, aligning with the District's goals and Strategic Plan. Include detailed services that will be provided, timelines, milestones, data migration, testing and training schedules, etc. as applicable.

SCHOOL DISTRICT U-46

REQUIREMENT #5: Program Expectations The following requirements are mandatory components of this RFP. Proposals that do not meet all of the requirements listed below will be deemed non-responsive and disqualified from further consideration. The Submitter must acknowledge in its proposal that the firm meets all of the requirements set forth in this RFP.

● Active Directory / LDAPS integration - Infinite Campus, Skyward, Google Workspace

● Single Sign-On (SSO)

● WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance (VPAT required)

● SOPPA, FERPA compliance

● Mobile responsive design

● Automatic translation features

● Customizable analytics dashboards

REQUIREMENT #6: Appendix A-Feature Compliance Matrix All submitters must complete the Appendix A-Feature Compliance Matrix indicating for each requirement listed in the Scope of Work and Required Services. Include details regarding any integration opportunities between the three platforms.

REQUIREMENT #7: System Reliability and Business Continuity Submitters must describe in detail their redundancy and business continuity measures to ensure that mass communications can be successfully delivered to all intended audiences in the event of a system failure, outage, or service degradation, with a target service availability of 99.999% (“five nines”) or higher.

At minimum, the response must include:

● Multi-region, multi-availability-zone architecture

● Elimination of single points of failure

● Automated failover mechanisms

● Continuously synchronized backups

● Geographic infrastructure diversity

● Alternative delivery methods (multi-carrier routing, third-party failover)

Service Level Agreements (SLAs):

● Monthly uptime commitments

● Definitions of downtime and degraded service

● Financial service credits or penalties for SLA breaches

● Public status page URL

● Last 12–24 months of uptime metrics

Recovery Objectives

● Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

● Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

● Disaster recovery testing frequency

● Real-time monitoring and alerting practices

REQUIREMENT #8: Security and Privacy Requirement All submitters must provide detailed, comprehensive responses addressing each of the following Security and Privacy Requirements. Failure to provide complete responses may result in the proposal being deemed non-responsive. Please ensure all required documentation and supporting materials are included with your submission.

Data Security

● Encryption at rest and in transit

● Role-based access controls

● Multi-factor authentication for administrators

● Audit logging

● Data residency locations

Student & Staff Privacy

● FERPA compliance

● SOPPA compliance

● District retains full ownership of all data

● No data resale, mining, or monetization

● Data deletion upon contract termination

Incident Response

● Breach notification procedures

● District notification within 24 hours

● Incident response and remediation support

REQUIREMENT #9: Billing The District requests itemized monthly billing by individuals that the district will provide once an award is determined. The submitter needs to acknowledge that they can meet this requirement.

REQUIREMENT #10: References Each vendor must submit a minimum of three (3) references that contain the following information: agency name, address, contact person and phone number and the size and scope of the project.

REQUIREMENT #11: Litigation The submitter shall provide a statement regarding any past, present, or pending litigation with an Owner.

REQUIREMENT #12: Additional Information You may submit up to three (3) additional pages of supplemental information if you deem it to be useful and applicable to this project. This is not a requirement, but optional.

ADDITIONAL PROPOSAL INFORMATION

● District U-46 reserves the right to request expansion of enrichment programs to additional schools during the contract period. The provider may accept or decline such requests at its discretion.

● All programs must be operated in accordance with District policies and contractual agreements.

● District U-46 will own all data and data will be exportable in standard formats.

● Data will be returned or destroyed upon termination.

● The district will not incur additional fees for data extraction.

SCHOOL DISTRICT U-46

INSURANCE

The selected contractor shall have and keep in effect during the term of this contract:

Commercial General Liability Insurance, Business Automobile Liability Insurance and Workers Compensation Insurance acceptable and satisfactory to the School District. A copy of insurance certifications shall be submitted to the School District. Please see below for coverage.

○ Work Compensation Employer’s Liability $500,000.00

○ Comprehensive General Liability

Bodily Injury – Each Occurrence $1,000,000.00 Bodily Injury – Aggregate (Completed Operation) $1,000,000.00 Property Damages – Each Occurrence $1,000,000.00 Property Damages – Aggregate $1,000,000.00 Or combined single limit $1,000,000.00

○ Comprehensive Automobile Liability Bodily Injury – Each Person $1,000,000.00 Bodily Injury – Each Occurrence $1,000,000.00 Property Damage – Each Occurrence $1,000,000.00 Or combined single limit $1,000,000.00

○ Umbrella or Excess Liability $10,000,000.00 Contractor acknowledges that failure to obtain such insurance on behalf of the District constitutes a material breach of contract and subjects it to liability for damages, indemnification and all other legal remedies available to the District. The contractor is to provide the District with a certificate of insurance, evidencing the above requirements have been met, prior to the commencement of work.

INDEMNIFICATION

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Contractor shall indemnify and hold harmless the Board, its successors, assigns, customer, agents and users of the goods herein against claims, damages, losses, and expenses, including but not limited to attorney's fees, arising out of or resulting from or in connection with performance of the Work, provided that such claim, damage, loss or expense is to the extent caused in whole or in part by negligent acts or omissions of the contractors, a Subcontractor, anyone directly or indirectly.

"Claims, damages, losses and expenses" as these words are used in this agreement shall be construed to include, but are not limited to (1) injury or damage consequent upon failure of or use or misuse by Contractor, its Subcontractors, agents, servants or employees, or any hoist, equipment, whether or not the same be owned, furnished or loaned by Owner; and (2) all attorney's fees and costs incurred in bringing action to enforce the provisions of this indemnity or any other indemnity contained in the Bid documents.

Only to the extent prohibited by law, the obligations of the Contractor under this agreement shall not extend to the liability of the Owner, their agents or employees, arising out of their negligence.

SCHOOL DISTRICT U-46

EVALUATION FOR AWARD

Because this search is being conducted as an RFP and per the Illinois procurement laws, the District is not required to choose the proposal from the lowest priced responsible/responsive company. Instead the proposals will be evaluated on the following criteria:

All proposals and other materials submitted shall become the property of the District.

Information submitted is or may be subject to the provisions of the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, and merely marking information as confidential is not necessarily sufficient to prevent disclosure.

The Board reserves the right to reject any or all proposals or any part thereof, to waive immaterial technicalities in the quoting, and to accept the proposal deemed most favorable to the Board after all proposals have been examined and evaluated.

Functional Fit & Features Submissions will be evaluated on how well the proposed solution meets the functional needs outlined in the RFP. This includes alignment with mandatory requirements, optional features, ease of use, scalability, and the ability to integrate with existing systems. Points will be assigned based on completeness, innovation, and practical applicability of the features.

Reliability & Infrastructure This criterion assesses the stability, performance, and scalability of the proposed solution. Evaluators will consider uptime guarantees, system architecture, redundancy, disaster recovery, and maintenance procedures.

Submissions should demonstrate a proven track record of reliability in similar environments.

Security & Privacy Submissions will be evaluated on the robustness of security controls, compliance with applicable privacy laws (e.g., SOPPA, FERPA), encryption practices, access controls, and data protection procedures. Detailed responses to the Security and Privacy Requirements section are mandatory, and adherence will be closely reviewed.

Training & Support This evaluates the availability and quality of training, onboarding, and ongoing support services. Considerations include documentation, user guides, helpdesk availability, response times, and training programs for administrators and end users. Submissions should demonstrate a clear plan for ensuring user adoption and sustained support.

Pricing Submit detailed information stating your company’s pricing to provide services as requested in the Scope of Work.

General Consent for Review of Specifications

By filling in the information below the submitter acknowledges that they have reviewed and agree to comply with all of the statements within this Bid Specification document. There are no exceptions to complying with these statements.

Company: __________________________________________

Representative (Print & Sign): _________________________________________

Title: _________________________________