RFI 2027-037 - ADD 1- Questions and Answers.pdf

RFI 2027-037 Florida Parent Transparency Portal ADDENDUM NO. 1

FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

BUREAU OF CONTRACTS, GRANTS AND PROCUREMENT

MANAGEMENT SERVICES

325 West Gaines Street 344 Turlington Building

Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0400

Addendum #1

BID NO.: RFI 2027-037

Florida Parent Transparency Portal

September 25, 2026

This addendum is being issued to provide the Answers to Questions submitted timely by vendors during the Question and Answers period.

Please be advised that all questions are keyed as submitted.

Questions Answers

1. Does the Department have a preferred solution approach at this stage, such as leveraging an existing commercial platform, implementing a configurable platform solution, developing a fully custom solution, or evaluating a hybrid approach combining existing capabilities with custom development?

The Department has not identified a preferred solution approach at this stage.

Respondents may describe commercial, configurable platform, custom development, or hybrid approaches and should identify assumptions, benefits, limitations, implementation considerations, and total cost implications for each proposed model.

2. Can the Department provide additional information regarding the current systems, available APIs, data exchange methods, integration documentation, and data access mechanisms that may be available for a future Parent Transparency Portal implementation?

Additional technical documentation is not being provided as part of this RFI.

3. Does the Department currently operate an enterprise data warehouse, data lake, analytics platform, master data management platform, or reporting environment that the future Parent

The Department currently operates an enterprise data warehouse, SAS analytics and master data management, and Tableau business intelligence reporting tool.

Transparency Portal should leverage?

4.Does the Department have a preferred hosting and operating model for the future solution, such as Department-managed cloud infrastructure, vendor-hosted SaaS, or a hybrid model where the Department retains ownership of data and governance while vendors provide platform operations?

The Department has not established a preferred hosting or operating model for purposes of this RFI. Respondents may propose Department-managed cloud infrastructure, vendor-hosted SaaS, or hybrid approaches, provided they address data ownership, governance, security, privacy, availability, disaster recovery, and compliance considerations.

5. Is the Department primarily seeking information on existing commercially available solutions that can be configured and adapted, or is the Department open to purpose-built solutions developed specifically around Florida’s education data ecosystem and operational requirements?

The Department is open to receiving information on both commercially available solutions that can be configured or adapted and purpose-built approaches designed around Florida’s education data ecosystem. Responses should clearly explain the proposed approach, relevant assumptions, implementation effort, sustainability, and cost considerations.

6. Has the Department established any existing participation agreements, data-sharing agreements, reporting requirements, or governance frameworks with scholarship-participating private schools that future solution providers should consider?

Respondents should identify any agreements, governance processes, or reporting structures they believe would be needed to support scholarship-participating private school participation.

7. What level of data granularity does the Department anticipate making publicly available versus restricting to authorized users? Should the future solution support only aggregated public reporting, or are authenticated user workflows involving more detailed information expected?

Respondents should assume the public-facing portal will prioritize aggregated, privacy-protected information.

8.Does the Department envision the AI-enabled parent assistant primarily as an informational guidance tool using approved Department content sources, or should vendors propose additional capabilities such as personalized recommendations, workflow assistance, or integration with other education services?

Respondents should propose all capabilities that they believe align with the

RFI.

9. Following this RFI, does the Department anticipate issuing a competitive solicitation, and if so, is there an estimated timeline for the next procurement phase?

At this time, the Department is solely gathering information regarding potential suppliers, their capabilities, and available solutions in the marketplace.

10. Does FDOE anticipate a single master SEE #9 RESPONSE contractor, or will the future procurement be structured to allow separate entities to handle core software hosting versus district integration, onboarding, and ongoing technical support?

11. Will FDOE leverage existing regional educational service agencies (such as Florida’s educational tri-consortia) to assist with local district data integration, technical assistance, and data quality assurance? Furthermore, will FDOE encourage the chosen software vendor to utilize the tri-consortia as a resource during the development, rollout and localization of the Transparency Portal?

SEE #9 RESPONSE

12. Does FDOE plan to mandate or incentivize specific interoperability standards (such as the Ed-Fi Data Standard, which many districts already utilize via FLCODE initiatives) for extracting data from district Student Information Systems (SIS) and private school providers into the portal?

No

13. For scholarship-participating private schools with varying levels of technical infrastructure, is FDOE looking for direct API-based automation, manual data entry portals, or localized technical assistance models to ensure accurate participation without overburdening school administrators?

The Department recognizes that scholarship-participating private schools may have varying technical capacity.

Respondents should describe flexible participation models, which may include API-based automation, secure file upload, manual data entry, validation workflows, training, and technical assistance options.

14. How does FDOE envisage data validation and approval workflows prior to public rendering? Specifically, will local school districts and participating private schools have a structured staging window to review, verify, and sign off on aggregated data metrics before they go live?

Specific validation and approval workflows have not been finalized. Respondents should recommend data validation, staging, review, correction, certification, publication, and audit processes that would help ensure accurate and reliable public reporting while minimizing administrative burden.

15. For Section 3 (AI-Enabled Parent Navigation), does FDOE expect the AI capabilities to integrate directly into district and regional customer support escalation channels, or will it operate solely as an automated state-level reference tool?

The Department has not determined whether AI-enabled navigation would integrate with district, regional, or Department support channels.

Respondents should describe recommended escalation models, routing logic, human handoff, tracking, and governance for inquiries that cannot be resolved through approved informational content.

16. Does relevant experience need to be U.S.-based, or is comparable government sector experience abroad acceptable?

Respondents may include relevant experience from U.S.-based or comparable government, sector, data transparency, analytics, portal, or AI-enabled service implementations. Responses should explain how the experience is comparable to Florida’s anticipated scope, governance, privacy, security, and stakeholder environment.

17. Is a modular, custom-integration approach (vs. a single pre-built product) an acceptable response?

Yes. A modular, custom-integration approach is an acceptable response to this RFI. Respondents should clearly describe the proposed modules, integration approach, governance model, ownership considerations, implementation dependencies, and how the approach would support long-term sustainability and reduced vendor lock-in.

18. Is there a minimum years-in-business or contract-size expectation for respondents?

The RFI does not establish a minimum year-in-business or contract-size requirement. Respondents should provide relevant organizational qualifications, project experience, staffing approach, delivery capacity, and examples that demonstrate their ability to support a solution of comparable scope and complexity.

19. May a U.S. affiliate present its parent company's experience as its own?

A U.S. affiliate may describe relevant parent company experience if the response clearly explains the relationship, the roles performed, the resources available to the affiliate, and how that experience would support any future work. Respondents should distinguish between affiliate, parent company, subcontractor, and partner qualifications.

20. The RFI notes the objective to evaluate "options for providing a single statewide platform that leverages existing parent portal solutions or determining whether anew platform is needed."

Does the Department envision the Parent Transparency Portal acting as an

The Department has not determined whether a future solution would operate as an aggregation or presentation layer, a consolidated platform, or a hybrid model.

Respondents should describe the approach they recommend for leveraging existing portals and data sources, overarching presentation/aggregation wrapper that links directly to underlying portals (e.g., Know Your Schools, MyFloridaSchools, and the recently deployed Parent Plus Portal for instructional materials), or the department intends to ingest raw underlying data and consolidate these disparate interfaces into a single unified code base and domain?

including the benefits, risks, dependencies, and cost implications.

21. What technical protocols currently exist for pulling reporting metrics out of the Florida Education and Training Placement Information Program (FETPIP) and PK- 12 state accountability data warehouses?

Are standardized RESTful APIs or Ed-Fi Operational Data Stores (ODS) currently active and accessible, or will data ingestion rely on scheduled flat-file/ETL database batch synchronizations?

The Department is not providing detailed technical protocols, API specifications, or data exchange documentation through this RFI unless included in the published materials. Respondents should identify the integration methods they assume and describe how their solution could support APIs, batch ETL, secure file exchange, or other data synchronization approaches.

22. What is the expected update frequency for accountability and enrolment metrics across public and postsecondary sectors (e.g., real-time via API, survey period synchronization, or annual state accountability release cycles)?

Specific update frequencies have not been finalized for this RFI. Respondents should state reasonable assumptions for each data domain and distinguish between data suited for annual accountability releases, periodic state reporting cycles, scheduled batch refreshes, and any data elements that may require more frequent updates.

23. Will the Department facilitate centralized data feeds from Florida’s Scholarship Funding Organizations (such as Step Up for Students and AAA Scholarship Foundation) for basic enrolment and demographic counts, or will the portal solution be required to collect data directly and individually from each participating private school?

The Department has not determined the data collection model for scholarship-participating private schools. Respondents should describe alternatives, including centralized feeds from scholarship funding organizations, direct school submission, secure file upload, manual entry, APIs, and hybrid models, along with governance and validation considerations.

24. Because private school participation may be voluntary or governed under structured agreements, what standardized outcome metrics (e.g., nationally norm-referenced test scores under F.S. 1002.395

vs. school-selected assessments) does the Department intend to benchmark alongside public school state assessment data?

The Department has not established a final set of standardized outcome metrics for this RFI. Respondents should identify metrics that may be meaningful, comparable, legally permissible, and practically collectable across sectors, and should explain limitations when data sources, assessments, populations, or reporting requirements are not directly comparable.

25. What level of vendor-provided support is anticipated for onboarding private schools with low technical capacity?

Should respondents price direct multi-channel tier-1 helpdesk support (phone/chat/ticketing) for private school administrators, or will regional coalitions/the Department manage local technical assistance?

The Department has not finalized the support model for onboarding scholarship-participating private schools. Respondents should describe scalable support options, including vendor-provided help desk services, training, documentation, office hours, regional or Department-led assistance, and assumptions used for pricing support at different participation levels.

26. For the statutory and plain-language summarization tool, what authoritative source repositories will serve as the ground-truth corpus for Retrieval- Augmented Generation (RAG)? Is the tool intended to query strictly Florida Statutes (e.g., Chapters 1000–1013) and State Board Rules, or will it also encompass district-level integrate into when escalating a parent inquiry to district, ELC, or Department student progression plans and local policy documents?

Respondents should describe recommended approaches for grounding responses in Department-approved sources, such as applicable statutes, rules, policies, guidance, program materials, and locally maintained documents where appropriate, including governance for source approval, updates, citations, and escalation.

27. Does the Department maintain an enterprise CRM or ticketing infrastructure (e.g., Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Zendesk) that the AI navigation tool should personnel?

No

28.What are FLDOE’s specific business rules for public-facing small-cell suppression when disaggregating demographic or outcome counts (e.g., minimum cohort size n < 10), particularly to prevent student re-identification in very small private school settings?

Minimum cohort size n < 10 for outcome data

29. Does the Department have a mandatory hosting environment (e.g., Florida Northwest Regional Data Center [NWRDC], state-tenant AWS GovCloud, or Azure Government), or should respondents provide commercial Cloud SaaS hosting models within their Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) estimates?

The Department has not established a mandatory hosting environment for purposes of this RFI. Respondents may describe vendor-managed SaaS, state-controlled cloud, approved government cloud, NWRDC-hosted, or hybrid options and should address data residency, security, privacy, availability, disaster recovery, governance, and total cost of ownership.

30. Does the Department require full perpetual ownership of custom-developed source code, or is FLDOE open to a COTS/SaaS model where the vendor retains core platform intellectual property while the Department retains sole ownership of all ingested data, configurations, and metadata?

Respondents should describe how their approach addresses Department ownership of data, configurations, metadata, custom-developed components, documentation, portability, source code access where applicable for Non COTS models, and transition options that reduce long-term vendor dependence.

31. Does the Department have a target legislative or school-year deadline for the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) launch (e.g., ahead of the 2027–2028 school choice enrolment window)?

The Department has not established a target MVP launch date beyond the information provided in the RFI. Respondents should provide realistic implementation timelines, identify assumptions and dependencies, and may recommend phased approaches aligned to school-year, budget, legislative, data availability, and stakeholder readiness considerations.

32. The RFI references existing public education systems including Know Your Schools and MyFloridaSchools.

The RFI references existing public education systems to inform respondent understanding of potential data sources, user experiences, and integration considerations. The Department has not determined whether any future solution would replace, extend, federate, or present information from those systems.

33. Were these platforms custom-built by internal Department IT personnel, or were they developed and maintained by third-party commercial vendors? If developed by third parties, could the Department share the vendor names or active state contract numbers for those systems?

Wonderschools is vendor for MyFloridaSchools.

Know Your Schools was built internal

34. Does the Department maintain a preference for Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) /Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms, or is FLDOE seeking custom-architected solutions where the Department retains complete ownership of source code and intellectual property?

The Department has not established a preference for COTS, SaaS, customs, open-source, or hybrid approaches for purposes of this RFI. Respondents should recommend the approach they believe best supports statewide scalability, sustainability, data governance, security, usability, cost effectiveness, and reduced vendor lock-in.

35. Has the Florida Legislature established a dedicated line-item appropriation or planning budget for the development and sustainment of the Florida Parent Transparency Portal, or is the budgetary information gathered from Section 7 of this RFI intended to substantiate an upcoming Legislative Budget Request (LBR)?

RFI intended to substantiate an upcoming Legislative Budget Request

36. Does the Department have an anticipated budgetary magnitude or ceiling for the initial Minimum Viable Product (MVP) phase versus long-term multi-year sustainment?

The Department has not established a budgetary magnitude or ceiling for an MVP or long-term sustainment. Respondents should provide transparent cost estimates, clearly identify assumptions, and separate one-time implementation, integrations, hosting, licensing, support, maintenance, enhancements, onboarding, and optional

AI-related costs where applicable.

37. Are there statutory, regulatory, or policy restrictions prohibiting vendors from performing development, system configuration, quality assurance, or non-production activities from offshore locations (such as India or other non-US facilities)?

Yes

38. If all student and education data remains hosted within the continental United States in a dedicated, FERPA-compliant cloud environment (e.g., AWS GovCloud Or Azure Government), does the Department permit non-US personnel to develop and maintain source code without direct access to production student records?

No

39. Following the review of RFI submissions, does the Department plan to invite qualified respondents to conduct vendor demonstrations, system walkthroughs, or proof-of-concept showcases to inform the RFP specification phase?

The Department has not determined whether demonstrations, walkthroughs, proof-of-concept sessions, or vendor meetings will occur following RFI review.

40. What is the Department’s projected timeline for releasing the formal competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) following the conclusion of this RFI review cycle?

SEE #9 RESPONSE

41. In any subsequent competitive SEE #9 RESPONSE solicitation, does FLDOE anticipate mandatory small-business participation thresholds or preference scoring for Florida-certified minority-owned businesses?

42. Response scope and next steps: May respondents address selected components or partnered delivery approaches, or does the Department prefer every response to describe a complete turnkey solution? Does the Department anticipate vendor sessions, demonstrations, or other opportunities for respondents to participate before a future competitive solicitation?

Respondents may address complete turnkey solutions, selected components, modular approaches, or partnered delivery models if the response clearly identifies scope, responsibilities, dependencies, integration needs, governance, and assumptions. The Department has not determined whether vendor sessions, demonstrations, or additional market research activities will occur before any future solicitation.

43. Data and technical documentation:

May the initial public portal operate solely on aggregated, privacy-protected data, or is it expected to process or retain student-level information? Can the Department make available, now or during a future procurement, data inventories, schemas, API specifications, data dictionaries, or other technical documentation for the systems named in the RFI?

Respondents should assume the public portal will prioritize aggregated, privacy-protected information. The Department is not providing additional data inventories, schemas, APIs, data dictionaries, or technical documentation through this RFI unless included in the published materials.

Respondents should identify assumptions and documentation needs.

44. AI and privacy: For the AI-enabled parent-navigation capabilities, should personalization be session-only and informational, or does the Department contemplate retaining user or student information across sessions?

No session or user data retention required

45. MVP and technical baselines: Does the Department have a desired MVP launch target or planning assumptions for initial institutional coverage, datasets, update frequency, scholarship-school participation, and usage volumes? Please also identify the cybersecurity, accessibility, records-retention, cloud, and interoperability standards respondents should use, including the expected WCAG version and conformance level.

The Department has not established detailed MVP assumptions for coverage, datasets, update frequency, participation, usage volumes, or technical baselines beyond the RFI materials. Respondents should clearly state assumptions and address applicable cybersecurity, accessibility, records-retention, cloud, privacy, and interoperability standards they recommend for planning and cost estimation.

46. Ownership and hosting: Does the State have preferences regarding ownership of custom code, open-source or commercial

The Department has not established the required ownership, licensing, or hosting-control model. Respondents should licensing, and hosting control, such as state-controlled cloud tenancy or vendor-hosted infrastructure, that respondents should reflect in their cost models?

describe their proposed model, including Department rights to data, configurations, documentation, custom components, APIs, transition materials, and the degree of State or vendor operational control reflected in cost estimates.

47. Response instructions and deadlines:

Is there a page limit, required file format, attachment-size limit, or required email subject line?

Respondents should follow the submission instructions stated in the RFI. The

Department is not adding additional page limits, file-format requirements, attachment-size limits, or subject-line requirements through this response unless such requirements are already specified in the published RFI materials.

48. Solution Approach and Commercial Platforms: The RFI seeks information regarding existing platforms, commercial solutions, and proposed architectures that can be adapted to create the statewide portal. Does the Department have a preferred solution model, or should respondents recommend the approach they believe best meets the Department's objectives?

The Department has not identified a preferred solution model. Respondents should recommend the approach they believe best meets the Department’s objectives and should explain benefits, risks, assumptions, implementation considerations, integration needs, ownership implications, security and privacy controls, and total cost of ownership.

49. Would a configurable commercial low-code application platform, supported by professional implementation, integration, and ongoing application management services, be considered an acceptable solution approach?

Yes. A configurable commercial low-code application platform may be described as an acceptable response to this RFI if the respondent explains how, it will meet Department objectives, integrate with authoritative data sources, support security and privacy requirements, reduce vendor lock-in, and provide sustainable operations and support.

50. Hosting and Deployment Requirements: Does the Department anticipate any mandatory hosting or deployment requirements for a future solution?

The Department has not established mandatory hosting or deployment requirements for a future solution through this RFI. Respondents should describe hosting and deployment options, including SaaS, state-managed cloud, government cloud, hosted infrastructure, or hybrid models, and include assumptions regarding security, data residency, availability, disaster recovery, compliance, and cost.

51. Specifically, would a vendor-managed SaaS platform hosted in a dedicated U.S.

A vendor-managed SaaS platform hosted in a dedicated U.S.-based cloud environment based cloud environment be acceptable, provided it satisfies applicable State and Department requirements for security, privacy, availability, disaster recovery, data residency, and data governance?

may be described as an acceptable approach if the respondent explains how the model satisfies applicable State and Department requirements for security, privacy, availability, disaster recovery, data residency, data governance, accessibility, and compliance.

52. Data Ownership, Licensing, and Vendor Independence: The RFI identifies minimizing long-term vendor dependence as an objective and requests information regarding licensing terms, code ownership, and measures to reduce vendor lock-in.

The Department’s objective is to understand options that support long-term sustainability, transparency, portability, and reduced vendor dependence.

Respondents should address data ownership, licensing, custom components, documentation, APIs, transition assistance, configuration portability, and other measures that would enable future flexibility.

53. Could the Department clarify the outcomes it considers most important in this area for example, Department ownership and portability of data, documented APIs and standard data exchange methods, portability of integrations and documentation, ownership of custom-developed components, application source-code ownership, or the ability to transition to another solution in the future?

The Department has not ranked these outcomes for purposes of this RFI.

Respondents should address all relevant considerations, including Department ownership and portability of data, documented APIs, standard exchange methods, integration portability, documentation, ownership of custom-developed components where applicable, source-code considerations, and transition options.

54. Existing Portals and Reuse Expectations: The RFI identifies leveraging existing portals where possible as a guiding principle and references MyFloridaSchools, Know Your Schools, and advanced interactive dashboards.

The Department is seeking respondent input on how existing portals, data services, dashboards, and user experiences could be leveraged, integrated, extended, or replaced. The RFI does not establish a requirement to preserve or replace any particular component unless otherwise stated in published materials.

55. Does the Department envision the future Parent Transparency Portal primarily as:

a. An enhancement or expansion of an existing Department portal;

b. A new unified parent-facing experience that integrates data and functionality from existing systems; or

The Department has not selected one of these models for purposes of this RFI.

Respondents may propose an enhancement of an existing portal, a new unified parent-facing experience, an interoperable entry point, or a hybrid approach, and should explain the benefits, risks, dependencies, implementation impacts, and cost implications of the

c. An interoperable entry point that links or federates existing portal experiences?

recommended model.

56. Are there existing portal components, functionality, data services, technology investments, or user experiences that the Department specifically expects respondents to preserve, reuse, or integrate?

No expectations for preserve, reuse, or integration of current components

57. Existing Systems, Data Sources, and Integration: For the Department systems, portals, and data sources identified in the RFI including school grades and accountability reporting, PK-12 data collections, advanced reporting tools, FETPIP outcomes, MyFloridaSchools, and Know Your Schools—what integration methods are currently available or anticipated, such as APIs, secure file exchange, scheduled data extracts, or other machine-to-machine interfaces?

The Department is not providing additional integration documentation through this RFI unless included in the published materials.

Respondents should state assumptions regarding APIs, secure file exchange, scheduled extracts, data services, or other interfaces and should describe how their proposed architecture can accommodate varying integration methods.

58. Where available, can the Department identify existing interface specifications, data dictionaries, applicable education data standards, representative schemas, approximate data volumes, historical-data requirements, and anticipated refresh frequencies that respondents should consider when developing architecture, implementation, timeline, and cost assumptions?

The Department is not providing additional interface specifications, data dictionaries, schemas, volumes, historical data requirements, or refresh-frequency details through this RFI unless included in the published materials. Respondents should identify assumptions and recommend the information needed to refine architecture, schedule, and cost estimates in a future procurement.

59. Scholarship-Participating Private Schools: Approximately how many scholarship-participating private schools should respondents assume may participate in the statewide portal?

The Department has not established a planning number for scholarship-participating private school participation through this RFI. Respondents should clearly state assumptions, provide scalable cost models where appropriate, and describe how their approach could support participation levels that vary over time.

60. Does the Department envision supporting multiple methods of participation—such as secure online data entry, standardized file uploads/templates, and API-based exchange—to accommodate schools with varying technical capabilities?

Yes. Respondents may describe multiple participation methods, including secure online data entry, standardized file upload templates, API-based exchange, validation workflows, and technical assistance options, particularly to accommodate schools and providers with varying technical capabilities.

61. Are standardized data definitions, reporting requirements, validation rules, or existing data-sharing processes for these schools already established or anticipated?

The Department has not finalized standardized data definitions, reporting requirements, validation rules, or data-sharing processes for this purpose through the RFI. Respondents should identify recommended standards, validation controls, governance processes, and data-sharing assumptions needed to support reliable and comparable information.

62. Scale, Performance, and Availability:

Does the Department have preliminary estimates or planning assumptions for expected public portal usage, peak concurrent users, transaction or API volumes, availability targets, response-time expectations, or anticipated periods of unusually high traffic?

The Department has not established preliminary usage, concurrency, transaction-volume, availability, response-time, or peak-traffic assumptions through this RFI. Respondents should state reasonable planning assumptions and recommend scalable architectures that can be adjusted as actual usage patterns become known.

63. If these have not yet been established, should respondents state reasonable assumptions and recommend an architecture capable of scaling as actual usage patterns become known?

Yes. Where specific performance, scale, or usage assumptions are not established, respondents should clearly state reasonable assumptions and recommend a flexible architecture that can scale as data volumes, user demand, transaction patterns, and service expectations become better defined.

64. AI-Enabled Parent Navigation: For the AI-enabled parent navigation capabilities described in the RFI, does the Department envision AI primarily as an informational and navigation capability grounded in Department-approved authoritative sources, with references to authoritative materials and escalation to appropriate human resources where necessary, or does the Department anticipate AI providing individualized eligibility or other official determinations?

The Department anticipates AI-enabled parent navigation primarily as an informational and navigation capability grounded in Department-approved authoritative sources. Respondents should not assume that AI will make official eligibility, placement, enrollment, scholarship, or legal determinations unless expressly stated in a future solicitation.

65. Does the Department anticipate providing or identifying the authoritative statutes, rules, policies, program information, and related materials upon which AI-generated information should be based?

The Department has not finalized the authoritative source set for AI-generated information through this RFI. Respondents should describe how they would ingest, govern, update, cite, and restrict responses to approved statutes, rules, policies, program materials, guidance, and other authoritative content identified by the Department.

66. MVP, Implementation Priorities, and Total Cost of Ownership: The RFI requests timeline estimates for both a minimum viable product and full rollout. Has the Department identified priority education sectors, data sources, integrations, or parent-facing capabilities that respondents should assume are included in an initial

MVP?

The Department has not identified final MVP priorities through this RFI.

Respondents should recommend an initial scope and phased roadmap, clearly identifying assumed education sectors, data sources, integrations, parent-facing capabilities, dependencies, risks, and estimated costs for both MVP and broader rollout.

67. If those priorities have not yet been established, should respondents recommend a phased implementation roadmap and clearly state the underlying assumptions?

Yes. If priorities have not been established, respondents should recommend a phased implementation roadmap and clearly state the assumptions used for sequencing, cost, risk, data availability, stakeholder readiness, integration complexity, and operational support.

68. For total-cost-of-ownership comparisons, does the Department have a preferred planning horizon, or should respondents identify and clearly state the TCO period and assumptions used in their response?

The Department has not established a preferred total-cost-of-ownership planning horizon through this RFI. Respondents should identify the TCO period used and clearly separate assumptions for implementation, hosting, licensing, integrations, support, maintenance, enhancements, onboarding, staffing, and optional AI capabilities.

69. Security, Privacy, and Compliance Requirements: In addition to the FERPA-aligned privacy and security controls identified in the RFI, are there specific State of Florida or Department security standards, cloud-security requirements, certifications, assessment requirements, data-residency requirements, records-management requirements, or other security/privacy frameworks that respondents should incorporate into their proposed architecture and cost assumptions?

The Department is not adding specific security, cloud, certification, assessment, data-residency, or records-management requirements through this RFI beyond those stated in the published materials.

Respondents should identify applicable federal, state, and Department standards they assume and describe how their proposed architecture and cost model would satisfy them.

70. Does the Department anticipate a single contract covering the entire portal, or separate awards for distinct components such as the data platform, the parent-facing interface, and the AI navigation capability?

The Department has not determined whether any future procurement would use a single contract, multiple awards, or separate components. Respondents may describe recommended contracting structures and should address accountability, integration responsibilities, governance, transition risk, cost, and operational sustainability.

71. Is the AI-Enabled Parent Navigation capability described in Section III.4 expected to be delivered by the portal vendor as an integrated feature, or could it be procured separately and integrated through APIs?

The Department has not determined whether AI-enabled parent navigation would be delivered as an integrated feature of a broader portal solution or procured separately. Respondents may describe either approach and should address integration, governance, security, privacy, user experience, cost, and operational implications.

72. Has funding been identified or appropriated for this initiative, or will responses to this RFI inform a future legislative budget request?

The Department is not providing additional information regarding identified or appropriate funding through this RFI response. Information received may be used for planning and market research, and any future funding, legislative budget request, or procurement decision will follow applicable State processes.

73. Does the Department have a target date for initial availability, and is a phased rollout contemplated? For example, an initial release covering K-12 traditional public and charter schools, with Early

The Department has not established a target date for initial availability through this RFI. Respondents are encouraged to recommend phased rollout options and clearly identify assumptions regarding

Learning, scholarship-participating private schools, and postsecondary added in later phases.

sector coverage, data readiness, integration complexity, stakeholder onboarding, school-year timing, budget, and operational support.

74. What contract structure and term does the Department anticipate, for example a fixed-price implementation followed by annual maintenance and support?

The Department has not determined the contract structure or term for any future procurement. Respondents should identify reasonable assumptions and may provide cost models for implementation, annual maintenance and support, hosting, licensing, enhancements, onboarding, and optional services across the planning horizon they recommend.

75. Does the Department currently receive enrollment, demographic, or outcome data from scholarship-participating private schools, either directly or through Scholarship Funding Organizations? If so, in what form and under what authority? If not, would establishing that data flow fall within the selected vendor's scope?

The Department has not finalized the data flow model for scholarship-participating private schools through this RFI.

Respondents should identify assumptions regarding existing data sources, Scholarship Funding Organization feeds, direct school submissions, legal authority, governance, validation, and whether new submission mechanisms or data-sharing processes would be required.

76. Is the Department's intent to extend Know Your Schools and MyFloridaSchools into the statewide portal, or to build a new front end that consumes data from them?

Are those systems currently operated under an existing contract?

The Department has not determined whether a future portal would extend existing portals, consume data from them, replace portions of the current experience, or operate as a new front end over authoritative data sources.

77. Does the Department have an established minimum cell size or suppression rule already in use for public reporting that the portal would be required to follow?

Minimum cohort size n < 10 for outcome data

78. Section III.4 asks that plain-language summaries preserve links to authoritative source documents. Which document sets does the Department consider authoritative for this purpose, for example Florida Statutes chapters 1000 through 1013, State Board of Education rules in Chapter 6A, F.A.C., Department technical assistance papers, or scholarship program handbooks? Are these available in machine-readable form, or would a vendor be working from published PDFs?

The Department has not finalized the authoritative document set or machine-readable source format for AI-enabled summaries through this RFI. Respondents should describe how they would work with statutes, rules, guidance, handbooks, published documents, PDFs, web content, or other Department-approved sources, including source governance, version control, citations, and update processes.

79. What is the Department's expectation for how the AI navigation tool should behave when a parent's question cannot be answered accurately from the authoritative sources? Specifically, should the tool decline and escalate rather than produce an uncertain answer, and does the Department anticipate requiring human review of AI-generated content before it is displayed to parents?

The Department anticipates that any AI-enabled capability should avoid producing unsupported or uncertain answers.

Respondents should describe guardrails for declining answers, citing authoritative sources, escalating to appropriate human support, logging interactions, and applying human review or quality assurance where needed.

80. Section IV states an objective of minimizing long-term cost and vendor dependence, and Section 4 of the Response Format addresses code ownership and lock-in. Does the Department have a preference among a commercial product configured for Florida, a custom solution with State-owned source code, or an open-source based approach?

The Department has not established a preference among commercial, custom, open-source, or hybrid approaches.

Respondents should recommend the model they believe best supports Department objectives, including sustainability, portability, transparency, data ownership, security, privacy, accessibility, cost effectiveness, and minimized long-term vendor dependence.

81. The RFI does not specify a page limit or file format for responses. Is there a preferred limit and format, and does the Department anticipate vendor demonstrations or one-on-one sessions after responses are received?

Respondents should follow the submission instructions stated in the RFI. The

Department is not adding a page limit, file format, or additional demonstration process through this response unless otherwise stated in the published RFI materials. Any vendor demonstrations or one-on-one sessions would be at the

Department’s discretion and consistent with procurement requirements.

82. Is the department open to leveraging an existing analytics platform currently being used at the agency?

The Department is open to respondent recommendations regarding use of existing agency analytics platforms, new platforms, or hybrid approaches. Respondents should describe assumptions, integration requirements, licensing, governance, scalability, security, privacy, and total cost implications associated with any proposed analytics approach.

83. What are the estimated named user counts for internal FL DOE staff, partner agency users, and private school submitters, as well as the expected peak concurrent public user visits?

The Department has not established named user counts, partner user counts, submitter counts, peak concurrency, or public-traffic estimates through this RFI.

Respondents should state reasonable assumptions, distinguish internal and public users where applicable, and provide scalable cost and architecture models.

84. Will the Department accept a fully managed, FedRAMP/StateRAMP-compliant SaaS Cloud solution, or is a state-hosted/on-premise deployment a strict requirement?

The Department has not established strict state-hosted or on-premises deployment requirement through this RFI. Respondents may describe fully managed SaaS, government cloud, State-hosted, on-premises, or hybrid models and should address applicable compliance, data residency, security, availability, disaster recovery, governance, and cost considerations.

85. What specific data standards, protocols, and common education data models (e.g., Ed-Fi, CEDS, REST APIs) are currently supported by the Department's existing systems, such as Know Your Schools, MyFloridaSchools, and FETPIP?

The Department has built custom data standards overtime.

86. What existing ticketing or constituent routing channels are in place across districts, early learning coalitions, and Scholarship Funding Organizations (SFOs) to receive automated escalations from the proposed AI parent navigation tool?

None

87. Are there specific 508/WCAG accessibility certifications or assistive-technology compatibility requirements the visualization layer must meet?

The Department is not adding specific certification or assistive-technology compatibility requirements beyond the RFI materials through this response.

Respondents should identify applicable Section 508, WCAG, accessibility testing, assistive-technology compatibility, and usability practices they recommend for the visualization layer.

88. Is multilingual rendering expected to be native to the visualization tool, or handled at the portal/content layer?

The Department has not determined whether multilingual rendering would be handled within the visualization tool, portal content layer, AI-enabled assistant, or a combination of components. Respondents should describe recommended multilingual support, translation governance, accessibility impacts, maintenance approach, and cost assumptions.

89. What are the expected concurrent user loads (statewide parent traffic) the analytics layer must support?

The Department has not established expected concurrent user loads for the analytics layer through this RFI.

Respondents should state reasonable assumptions for public traffic, peak periods, dashboard usage, response times, and growth, and should describe scalable design options.

90. What row-level or role-based security model is required to ensure parents only see appropriate aggregated/de-identified data versus authorized internal users seeing granular data?

Respondents should assume public users will receive aggregated, de-identified, privacy-protected information unless otherwise specified in a future solicitation.

91. Does the Department require audit logging and lineage tracking at the dashboard/visualization level, not just the database level?

No

92. Does the Department have a preference for the AI tool being embedded directly within the analytics/dashboard experience, or as a standalone chat interface layered on top of the portal?

The Department has not established a preference for embedding the AI tool directly within analytics dashboards or providing it as a standalone portal interface. Respondents may describe either model or a hybrid approach and should address user experience, governance, accessibility, privacy, integration, monitoring, and cost implications.

93. What guardrails are required for AI-generated statutory/eligibility summaries

— e.g., citation-to-source requirements, human review before publishing responses, or restrictions on the AI paraphrasing legal/statutory text?

The Department expects respondents to address appropriate guardrails for AI-generated statutory, policy, or eligibility-related summaries. Recommended controls may include grounding in approved sources, source citations, confidence thresholds, human review, disclaimers, retention controls, audit logging, and restrictions against unsupported legal or official determinations.

94. How should the AI tool's escalation-to-human-support logic be triggered and tracked — is a defined confidence threshold or routing workflow expected, and to whom (district, ELC, SFO, Department)?

The Department has not defined escalation thresholds or routing workflows through this RFI. Respondents should recommend escalation triggers, confidence thresholds, routing logic, human handoff processes, responsible entities, tracking, reporting, and governance for inquiries that require district, early learning, scholarship, or Department support.

95. Is grounding the AI's answers in an auditable, governed dataset (vs. open web or unmanaged LLM knowledge) a requirement, given FERPA and accuracy concerns?

Yes

96. For each named source (PK-12 data collections, school grades/accountability, FETPIP, MyFloridaSchools), is data available via API, or only via scheduled batch extracts — and what is the current refresh cadence for each?

Data is available via scheduled batch jobs

97. Is there any estimated or forecasted volume of requests anticipated or required for the portal?

The Department has not established estimated or forecasted request volumes through this RFI. Respondents should provide assumptions for anticipated usage, peak periods, transaction volumes, public traffic, internal users, growth, scalability, monitoring, and cost impacts.

98. What specific integration protocols, interfaces, and authentication methods (e.g., REST, SOAP, SFTP, OData, OAuth2, SAML) are exposed by existing state systems like FETPIP, PK-12 Data Collections, and School Grades?

The Department is…