Amendment 1.docx

State of South Carolina

Request for Proposal Amendment 1

Solicitation:

Date Issued:

Procurement Officer:

Phone:

E-Mail Address:

Mailing Address:

5400028290 07/31/2025

FAITH WILLIAMS

803 737-2925 fmwilliams@mmo.sc.gov SFAA, Div. of Procurement Services 1201 Main Street, Suite 601 Columbia SC 29201

DESCRIPTION: EDUCATOR EMPLOYMENT SYSTEM

USING GOVERNMENTAL UNIT: Winthrop University

SUBMIT YOUR OFFER ON-LINE AT THE FOLLOWING URL: http://www.procurement.sc.gov

SUBMIT OFFER BY (Opening Date/Time): 08/21/2025 11:00 AM EST (See "Deadline For Submission Of Offer" provision)

QUESTIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY: 07/25/2025 2:00 PM EST (See "Questions From Offerors" provision)

NUMBER OF COPIES TO BE SUBMITTED: One online submission and One Redacted Copy submitted online.

Initial here if NO redacted copy is necessary___________

CONFERENCE TYPE: Pre-Proposal

DATE & TIME: 07/24/2025 2:00 PM EST

(As appropriate, see "Conferences - Pre-Bid/Proposal" & "Site Visit" provisions) LOCATION: Virtual-MS Teams - Please email fmwilliams@mmo.sc.gov by 3:00 PM 07/23/2025 3:00 PM ET to receive invitation

You must submit a signed copy of this form with Your Offer. By signing, You agree to be bound by the terms of the Solicitation. You agree to hold Your Offer open for a minimum of one hundred twenty (120) calendar days after the Opening Date. (See "Signing Your Offer" provision.)

NAME OF OFFEROR

(full legal name of business submitting the offer) Any award issued will be issued to, and the contract will be formed with, the entity identified as the Offeror. The entity named as the offeror must be a single and distinct legal entity. Do not use the name of a branch office or a division of a larger entity if the branch or division is not a separate legal entity, i.e., a separate corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, etc.

AUTHORIZED SIGNATURE

(Person must be authorized to submit binding offer to contract on behalf of Offeror.)

DATE SIGNED

TITLE

(business title of person signing above)

STATE VENDOR NO.

(Register to Obtain S.C. Vendor No. at www.procurement.sc.gov)

PRINTED NAME

(printed name of person signing above)

STATE OF INCORPORATION

(If you are a corporation, identify the state of incorporation.)

OFFEROR'S TYPE OF ENTITY: (Check one) (See "Signing Your Offer" provision.)

___ Sole Proprietorship ___ Partnership ___ Other_____________________________

___ Corporate entity (not tax-exempt) ___ Corporation (tax-exempt) ___ Government entity (federal, state, or local)

COVER PAGE - ON-LINE ONLY (MAR. 2015)

SAP

SAP

AMENDMENTS TO SOLICITATION (JANUARY 2006) (a) The Solicitation may be amended at any time prior to opening. All actual and prospective Offerors should monitor the following web site for the issuance of Amendments: www.procurement.sc.gov . (b) Offerors shall acknowledge receipt of any amendment to this solicitation (1) by signing and returning the amendment, (2) by identifying the amendment number and date in the space provided for this purpose on Page Two, (3) by letter, or (4) by submitting a bid that indicates in some way that the bidder received the amendment. (c) If this solicitation is amended, then all terms and conditions which are not modified remain unchanged.

THE SOLICITATION IS AMENDED AS PROVIDED HEREIN. INFORMATION OR CHANGES RESULTING FROM QUESTIONS WILL BE SHOWN IN A QUESTION-AND-ANSWER FORMAT. ALL QUESTIONS RECEIVED HAVE BEEN REPRINTED BELOW. THE “STATE’S RESPONSE” SHOULD BE READ WITHOUT REFERENCE TO THE QUESTIONS. THE QUESTIONS ARE INCLUDED SOLELY TO PROVIDE A CROSS-REFERENCE TO THE POTENTIAL OFFEROR THAT SUBMITTED THE QUESTION. QUESTIONS DO NOT FORM A PART OF THE CONTRACT; THE “STATE’S RESPONSE” DOES. ANY RESTATEMENT OF PART OR ALL OF AN EXISTING PROVISION OF THE SOLICITATION IN AN ANSWER DOES NOT MODIFY THE ORIGINAL PROVISION EXCEPT AS FOLLOWS: UNDERLINED TEXT IS ADDED TO THE ORIGINAL PROVISON. STRICKEN TEXT IS DELETED.

Answer vendor questions – State response in blue Attach Service Provider Security Assessment Questionnaire Vendor Questions

1. Validate that there are approximately 1200 employees at Winthrop?

Permanent FT and PT staff at the university is approximately 750 per our most recent IPEDs report. This does not fully account for temporary employees (such as adjunct faculty) that are inherent at an IHE. The original number provided includes these temporary employees.

However, it is important to note that the Online Educator Employment System is for K12 public school districts to post teaching vacancies and review applications. Please see our current system here: https://cerra.mysmartjobboard.com/

2. Approximately how many hires, new or rehires in any given year?

Please see above. This system is not to recruit Winthrop employees, but rather as a service for South Carolina’s 75 K12 school districts.

3. Is the South Carolina CERRA Educator employment system solely and specifically for educators only, for example: only for certificated professors, lecturers, instructors, teachers, not administrative staff or support/departmental staff?

The CERRA OEES is a state-wide system for K12 certified staff. According to the most recent data collected for the South Carolina Annual Educator Supply and Demand Report, there were 7,381 new teachers hired in 2024-2025; there were 1,043 remaining vacancies.

4. How many varying requisitions do you have for this group of educators?

If you are referring to the potential variety of position types, it would be approximately 35 types of positions (e.g. school librarian, elementary educator, physical education teacher, principal, math teacher, literacy coach).

5. How many postings does the university typically have in a year.

Again, this service will not be used for University hiring purposes.

With 71 of the 75 South Carolina school districts reporting in 2024-2025, there were 7,381 new hires and 1,043 remaining vacancies (Supply and Demand Report). Not all of those hired went through the existing CERRA OEES portal; however, as we work to make this system more user-friendly across districts, we would expect to see more users in the system.

6. What is your current HRIS, and do you handle position management within? Do you recruit based in positions?

South Carolina K12 school districts utilize various HR systems. They do hire based on position (e.g. the certification qualifications need to match the position; if a school district is looking for an elementary school teacher, the applicant should be certified to teach elementary school in South Carolina).

7. Do we need to integrate into a background check provider? If so, which one.

SC K12 school districts will run their own background checks. There is no need to integrate into a background check provider.

8. How many varying steps are in the approval chain of a requisition?

South Carolina K12 District liaisons will be given permissions to post their own job descriptions; they should also have the capability to download applications submitted to their school district.

9. Is there a need for onboarding tasks prior to new hire (i.e I-9's etc prior to new hire) No, SC K12 school district will be responsible for onboarding tasks of applicants.

IN SECTION III Scope of Work

10. Can you elaborate on what defines SC school district systems in the statement referencing "automation of job postings from SC School District Systems” Is this tied in any way to K-12 systems/school districts?

Yes, the OEES would be a state-wide system to allow for a prospective applicant to see job openings in districts around South Carolina, select areas of certification, complete an application, and send that application to multiple districts.

An additional, desired aspect of the system is to allow the applicant- when they enter the system- to respond to a set of common statewide employment questions. Further, when a specific position or district is selected, there are district- specific questions that would be available to the applicant.

11. You reference using Smartboard since 2017. Is it the desire to completely replace Smartboard? Does Smartboard have any other responsibilities currently other than recruitment? Were there specific shortcomings in function or adoption that led to making this change, if so can you share some examples where requirements weren't met?

We are completely replacing Smartboard. Please review our current system here: https://cerra.mysmartjobboard.com/. Moving forward, we request that information on applicants – especially those that go on to be hired- is easily exportable for use in local HR systems.

The current system does not allow for customized district requests. As referenced above, we would like the system to allow for a set of statewide, common questions with the option for districts to upload questions unique to their context.

12. Does the CERRA Educator System tie back to multiple integrations for The State of South Carolina Enterprise Information Systems (SCEIS)? Is there reporting required from CERRA back up to the State?

The system will be independent of SCEIS because the applicants will be employees of a SC public school district.

CERRA will need to be able to pull data on use of the system in order to report to the state.

13. Regarding RFP page 22, “Service Provider Security Assessment Questionnaire” – it appears that there are several iterations of this document hosted on the State Procurement website. Can you please provide a copy of the Service Provider Security Assessment Questionnaire that we need to complete for this RFP?

Attached

14. Are you intending to provide Applicant Tracking System services to ALL districts in South Carolina? Or only the districts currently utilizing SmartJobBoard? If the latter, could you share the student and employee counts for the districts that will be using the system?

We expect initially that current districts will be the early adopters, but with a more robust system it is our hope that we can expand use as it will be open to all districts.

SERVICE PROVIDER SECURITY ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE

Instructions: (1) Attach additional pages or documents as appropriate and make sure answers cross reference to the questions below. (2) As used in this Questionnaire, the phrase “government information” shall have the meaning defined in the clause titled “Information Security.” (3) This Questionnaire must be read in conjunction with both of the following two clauses (a) Service Provider Security Assessment Questionnaire – Required, and (b) Service Provider Security Representation.

1. Describe your policies and procedures that ensure access to government information is limited to only those of your employees and contractors who require access to perform your proposed services.

2. Describe your disaster recovery and business continuity plans.

3. What safeguards and practices do you have in place to vet your employees and contractors who will have access to government information?

4. Describe and explain your security policies and procedures as they relate to your use of your contractors and next-tier subcontractors.

5. List any reports or certifications that you have from properly accredited third-parties that demonstrate that adequate security controls and assurance requirements are in place to adequately provide for the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information systems used to process, store, transmit, and access all government information. (For example, an ISO/IEC 27001 compliance certificate, an AICPA SOC 2 (Type 2) report, or perhaps an AICPA SOC 3 report (i.e., a SysTrust or WebTrust seal)). For each certification, describe the scope of the assessment performed. Will these reports / certifications remain in place for the duration of the contract? Will you provide the state with most recent and future versions of the applicable compliance certificate / audit report?

6. Describe the policies, procedures and practices you have in place to provide for the physical security of your data centers and other sites where government information will be hosted, accessed or maintained.

7. Will government information be encrypted at rest? Will government information be encrypted when transmitted? Will government information be encrypted during data backups, and on backup media? Please elaborate.

8. Describe safeguards that are in place to prevent unauthorized use, reuse, distribution, transmission, manipulation, copying, modification, access or disclosure of government information.

9. What controls are in place to detect security breaches? What system and network activity do you log? How long do you maintain these audit logs?

10. How will government information be managed after contract termination? Will government information provided to the Contractor be deleted or destroyed? When will this occur?

11. Describe your incident response policies and practices.

12. Identify any third party which will host or have access to government information.

Offeror’s response to this questionnaire includes any other information submitted with its offer regarding information or data security.

SIGNATURE OF PERSON AUTHORIZED TO REPRESENT THE ACCURACY OF THIS INFORMATION ON BEHALF OF CONTRACTOR:

Date: ____________________________________

SPSAQ (JAN 2015) [09-9025-1]

END OF AMENDMENT 1

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