CCSSO-JA-3-3-15_Posted.pdf

SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION PROCEDURES

JUSTIFICATION FOR SOLICITING A SINGLE SOURCE

(ORDER GREATER THAN MICRO-PURCHASE THRESHOLD (CURRENTLY $3,000)

BUT LESS THAN SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION THRESHOLD (CURRENTLY $150,000)

3 March 2015

Capacity Building Support for the DoDEA

1. Contracting Agency: Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), 4800 Mark

Center Drive, Alexandria, VA 22350-1400.

2. Nature and/or Description of the Action: Current purchase request number HE1254-14-P-

0012 shall be modified to expand existing membership with the Council of Chief State

School Officers (CCSSO) to provide supplies and/or services described herein.

3. Description of Supplies and Services: DoDEA is seeking to build capacity of the team leading the implementation of College and Career Readiness (CCR) standards and thus, has a need (1) to gain an understanding of current capacity to implement the standards and receive a written report with recommended action to support DoDEA’s next steps in implementation;

(2) for support to build internal capacity to carry the CCR work forward via lessons learned from other State Education Agency clients, training, or other applicable options; and (3) for support in the development of an operational delivery plan to guide the implementation; The estimated total cost is $115,000.00 over a period of seven months.

4. Identification of Statutory Authority: FAR 13.501 (a) a sole source acquisition under the authority of the test program for commercial items at 41 U.S.C. 1901.

5. Reason for Authority Cited: These services are only available to CCSSO members. The contract is being expanded to include these fees for services. CCSSO does not provide these services to nonmembers. These services were not optioned in the original contract.

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is a nationwide, nonpartisan, and nonprofit membership organization—the only one of its kind to bring together the top education leaders from every state and territories in the nation. CCSSO’s supports State

Education Chiefs and their organizations by focusing on organization-driven initiatives and priorities.

CCSSO leads and facilitates collective state action to transform public education systems in four strategic areas: educator workforce; information systems and research; next generation learners and learning; and standards (implementation, assessment and accountability).

DoDEA’s highly mobile military connected students enter our school system from all 50 states and US territories, increasing our responsibility to be connected to the national voice of education transformation. DoDEA functions as a State Education Agency (SEA), as the school system of the Department of Defense. DoDEA also functions as a Local Education

Agency (LEA) with 14 districts operating within our DoDEA Headquarters (HQ) jurisdiction. Our membership with CCSSO is a state level membership.

CCSSO provides services to all 50 states through their membership organization. There is no other organization that can provide guidance for DoDEA’s HQ level strategy for all 14

3 March 2015 2 districts, to build capacity for information systems and to provide research on program development and next generation learners and learning (standards implementation, assessment and accountability). The unique connection DoDEA has to all 50 states, sending students to and through our school system, makes CCSSO, which is identically unique because it’s connected to all 50 states, uniquely qualified to guide our long-term planning.

6. Potential Sources for Broad Solicitation: DoDEA does not have any other memberships with

Education Organizations that support capacity building studies and planning. DoDEA does have other education memberships, however they are not qualified to offer this kind of service and do not offer services for “state-level” capacity building and planning within their organizations. A sole source notice was publicized on the GPE per FAR subpart

5.207(c)(15), which allowed vendors a chance to respond within 5 calendar days if they could meet DoDEA’s requirement. No responses were received at the end of the response period.

7. Price reasonableness: The cost to the Government is determined to be fair and reasonable based on similar work CCSSO has done for capacity building and planning with other states, specifically Kentucky, Delaware, South Dakota, Massachusetts and Tennessee.

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted, since these services are an expansion of a current membership. There are no other current memberships DoDEA has to expand for these services.

Based on extensive market research, CCSSO was determined to be the only organization that addresses the implementation of the Common Core State Standards through a national perspective. DoDEA requires access to all implementing states’

Common Core State Standards resources, tools, assessments and personnel in charge of implementation. CCSSO’s, Implementing the Common Core Standards Collaborative is the only group that includes a comprehensive online resource providing access to share research and information with all states. Furthermore, it is the only group that includes all Common Core state leaders in multiple content areas including policy, curriculum, communication, assessments and instruction.

After conducting extensive market research to locate firms and nonprofit organizations which can provide these services and information, no other firms or nonprofit organizations were found that pool the collective knowledge of the nation’s education executives to develop and enhance their effectiveness and provide them with technical assistance. It was determined that CCSSO is the only entity which delivers theses services in a cohesive program and can meet DoDEA’s requirement. No other source can satisfy this requirement. Therefore, DoDEA must purchase these critical services and information from the only known source, CCSSO, to fulfill its requirement. Research has been conducted and we find no other for-profit or nonprofit organization that can provide the required services, through an existing membership.