Amendment 0002 Clarification Q and A 8.6.20.pdf

Updated response to previous question

10. Can the Department specify the ceiling amount for each TO or the IDIQ altogether?

The maximum ordering ceiling for each individual order is $3 million. The IDIQ ceiling for all orders is $10 million.

Second round of questions

Q. 1 Can the list of projects cited in either proposal as relevant corporate and staff experience be included in a table in the appendix? Please confirm that this table will not count toward the proposal page limit.

Ans.1 Yes, this can be included in the appendix. This table will not count toward the IDIQ page limit nor the Task Order page limit.

Q. 2 Could ED please clarify the technical evaluation criteria in subsections B (page 68) of the RFP? This section currently references expertise that do not seem relevant to this procurement about family engagement (e.g. ., career and technical education programs and policy and extraction and use of the Department’s Federal Student Aid data and other federal agency data)?

Ans. 2 The evaluation criteria in subsection B, second bullet (p.68) of the RFP should read as follows: "The leadership team (Project Director, Deputy Project Director, and/or Principal Investigator) and other key staff -- has experience and skill in leading, managing, designing, and conducting all aspects of evaluations (preferably in education settings) that are similar to this procurement in content (e.g., family engagement program development and delivery; types of engagement and programs for special populations; education choice strategies and engagement;

program operations and challenges; evidence of promising family engagement content and delivery strategies); methodology (i.e., design and use of large and small-scale random assignment; survey and instrument design, descriptive analyses of implementation); complexity (e.g., technical complexity, potential for multiple evaluations to be conducted at the same time);

scope (potentially hundreds of school districts for an implementation study, potentially thousands of students for an effectiveness study); and data collection modes (e.g., extraction and use of the Department’s survey data and other federal agency data; matching with EDFacts data; extraction and coding of districts’ or schools’ individual student records and surveys.)".

Q. 3 Should we submit the technical proposals for the IDIQ and the task order in one 50-page document, or should we submit two documents that cumulatively add up to no more than 50 pages of narrative?

Ans. 3 The instructions on the number of pages maximum for the technical proposal volume, as stated in the Amendment, are not correct. Here is how the Amendment should read: "The technical proposal for the IDIQ must not exceed 50 pages. The technical proposal for Task Order 0001 should follow and must not exceed 50 pages.” In other words, you should submit the IDIQ as "Volume 1, Part 1 (50 pages max)," and Task Order 001 in a subsequent section of the same

("Volume 1, Part 2," an additional 50 pp. max). The technical volume should all be one continuously numbered 100-page document, divided in two parts.

Q. 4 Can the list of projects cited in either proposal as relevant corporate and staff experience be included in a table in the appendix? Please confirm that this table will not count toward the proposal page limit.

Ans. 4 Yes, this can be included in the appendix. This table will not count toward the IDIQ page limit nor the Task Order page limit.