Sources Sought (EASIE).pdf

Electronic Application System for Indian Education

(EASIE) System Technical Support

Sources Sought Announcement

U.S. Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

Office of Indian Education

Purpose:

The U.S. Department of Education (ED), Office of Indian Education (OIE) is seeking qualified businesses to provide an integrated and comprehensive approach, integrating Electronic Application System for Indian Education (EASIE) within the OESE/OIE managed Task Order structure, following the OESE/CONNECT/OCIO Project Management, and proven shared Project Management, Change Management and Partner Support Center (PSC) methodologies.

This is a Sources Sought Announcement being released pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 10 - Market Research. This Sources Sought Announcement’s purpose is to conduct market research and determine the availability and technical capability of all sources to provide the required services.

The applicable North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code assigned to this procurement is 518210 – Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services.

There is no solicitation at this time. This request for capability information does not constitute a request for proposals; submission of any information in response to this market survey is purely voluntary; the government assumes no financial responsibility for any costs incurred.

Background:

The EASIE system is critical for processing applications for Indian Education Formula Grants to annually distribute over $105 million in grant funds to eligible Local Education Agencies (LEAs), Indian Tribes and organizations, and other eligible entities in developing elementary and secondary school programs that serve Indian students. The EASIE system supports OIE’s determination of applicant eligibility, calculates grant amounts for distribution to grantees, and captures grantee objectives. The system also supports Annual Performance Reporting for grantees to report on their use of the grant funds dispersed to them to meet the objectives defined in their application.

Objective:

The Department is seeking industry feedback regarding the Draft Statement of Objectives that is attached to this announcement. The Department is seeking capability statements addressing the following:

Vendor to demonstrate its ability to meet the objectives of the requirement to include the effort’s size and scope. This section contains the objectives to be achieved by the contractor in the three areas of data management services, information technology services and stakeholder support services.

The overall objectives of this task order are to collect accurate applications for Formula Grant EASIE (in two parts) so that OIE can review and approve the applications, and accurately allocate the funds for EASIE, and collect an APR as accountability for the spending of the grant money, at the lowest cost to ED and lowest burden to grantees.

The requirements objectives include:

1. Reduce review time for OIE review staff time and improve quality of reviews by enhancing the EASIE application and support services processes.

2. Streamline the process of how G5 and EASIE interface.

3. Improve availability of the data from applicants and grantees, without the need for OIE to open individual PDFs.

4. Streamline the collection of data from applicants and grantees creating greater efficiencies amongst all stakeholders, and data-driven decision-making at the program level.

Vendor to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and experience in all the following areas:

• Substantial and relevant experience and skills in expanding and rebranding an existing online (i.e., website) national resource center into a robust and dynamic online national resource, training, and technical assistance center. Interested parties should demonstrate the ability to rebrand an existing resource center into a national, multimedia resource, training, and technical assistance center to support the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Indian Education (OIE) Formula/Title VI, Part A, Subpart I(T6A1) and to provide training and technical assistance to all T6A1 grantees, aspiring grantees, the Indian Education sector and general public, including the Department. See the draft Statement of Objectives for a complete detail of the OIE Formula grant program.

• Demonstrated knowledge of, and substantial, collective experience and skill in working with Indian Education/ T6A1 content and supporting all grantee types and stakeholders of the T6A1programs. Interested parties should demonstrate a deep understanding of and experiences with the T6A1programs statute; Tribal, federal, and state laws and regulations under which T6A1 programs operate; T6A1 authorizing practices and policies; and other issues critical to the successful implementation of all T6A1. See the draft Statement of Objectives for a complete list of all the T6A1 programs.

• Collective experience and skill in addressing the unique training and technical assistance needs of the T6A1 schools program grantees, to include the creation of a leadership and skills development program for the T6A1 program grantees. Interested parties should describe successful experiences providing high-quality and targeted training and technical assistance in response to specific challenges encountered by T6A1 programs on topics ranging from charter school financing and facilities; charter authorizing and promising practices; creating, expanding, and replicating high-quality charter schools; analyzing data to inform charter school demand and community needs; and, creating and disseminating tools, resources, training materials to the support the T6A1 grantees, the charter sector, and the Department. Additionally, interested parties must also describe successful experiences with creating and implementing a leadership (Indian Education program management) and skills development program that that seeks in increase the capacity of, and accelerates the rate in which, program participants achieve a particular set of outcomes and results.

• Corporate and localized community experience conducting projects similar in nature to that described in the draft Statement of Objectives for the OIE Formula/ T6A1 “EASIE” Resource, Training, and Technical Assistance Center.

Interested parties should describe successful corporate and community-based experience with past projects that are similar to that described in the draft Statement of Objectives in terms of the tasks to be performed, complexity, and level of effort required.

• Sufficient corporate capacity in terms of numbers of highly skilled staff with subject matter expertise in a variety of areas, such as (but not limited to) the following: (a) effectively set up and maintain a robust inter-operable data management processes and work-flows for multiple data sources and sets, (b) I.T.

development, (c) provide robust and rapid cloud-based project management, (d) perform routine detailed quality assurance/checks, (e) operate an efficient and effective help desk for approximately 1300 grantees with multiple points of contact, (f) generate routine advanced Excel reports utilizing advance formulas, functions, and VBA, (g) set up, manage, and process/archive synchronous/live webinars for 500+ guests that include numerous breakout rooms, (h) create, manage, and routinely update several social media accounts, (i)create and maintain a robust, dynamic, and ever current resource set for programs, (j) last but not least fully manage the opening and closing of four distinct parts of EASIE:

Part I (Application Part A), Part II (Application Part B), Part III (Annual Performance Report-APR), and Part IV (New Application Registration). See the draft Statement of Objectives for a complete list of all theT6A1, and (i) support the ATO renewal and other similar Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) data calls. Interested parties should describe why they have or can easily obtain a sufficient number of highly qualified and skilled staff with knowledge of applicable laws and regulations under which T6A1 operate and expertise in the T6A1 programs, creating and delivering responsive and multimodal training and technical assistance, and creating and disseminating best practices related to T6A1 operations and management.

This document consists of three major information request components to be submitted in three parts:

1. Request for capability statements.

2. Targeted vendor outreach questions and responses.

3. Request for comment and feedback relating to the SOO

Detailed information for each request is located in the appropriate subsection below. Please review this document carefully as it is designed to streamline the acquisition process and avoid an extensive question-answer period during the active solicitation phase. Please feel free to submit additional questions as part of your document response so that the Department may address your questions prior to release of the solicitation.

Please note that all solicitation-related documents in this Sources Sought Announcement are draft versions. The content of each document may change substantially between release of this notice and release of the final solicitation. The final solicitation will be governed by the terms, conditions, instructions, and criteria in that document. Offerors should not rely on the contents of this Source Sought Announcement for preparing final proposals. To the extent that information provided in this document is inconsistent with or contradicts information contained in the final Solicitation, the Solicitation controls.

Submission Instructions Detailed information for the required submission is provided below. Vendors should submit, via email, the following documents to Brian.Pentecost@ed.gov with a cc to Matthew.Lucas@ed.gov no later than April 17, 2024 at 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time.

The subject line shall read: Sources Sought: 91990024Q0041-EASIE-AP 77.

I. One PDF document that contains your Capability Statement.

II. One PDF document that contains your response to vendor questions.

III. One WORD document that contains any comments, track change revisions, or edits to the SOO. Narrative justifications for changes are also welcome if appropriate. If offerors have additional questions regarding any of the three documents, please feel free to include this information in a separate heading in your WORD document that contains these questions in addition to any narrative information.

Vendor should submit all three documents in one email. Please note there is a 15MB file size limitation.

Capability Statements The Department requests capability statements in order to evaluate what, if any, set aside determinations are appropriate. The Department will make a small business set aside determination for the requirement. We reserve the right to use other resources and information to inform our acquisition strategy.

The Department will not review generic capability statements. Vendors are to provide a capability statement that demonstrates the vendor’s corporate capability, capacity, and knowledge to successfully complete the work of the SOO.

Format and Instructions for Capability Statements The capability statements must contain sufficient detail; however, statements are limited to 10 pages (not including the cover page) and must be submitted in PDF format. Font size must be 12-point, minimum 10-point for any tables or figures. The Department will not consider material more than 10 pages.

Cover Page containing the following information:

• Name of Company

• Address

• Primary Point of Contact (phone and email)

• Unique Entity Identifier (UEID)

• Socioeconomic Status under the NAICS code 518210 – Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services.

• GSA Schedule (If Applicable)

Vendor Questions

(1) What, if any, additional information should the Department provide in the SOO to enable you to accurately estimate the price/cost of each task?

(2) Can you identify any barriers to competition? If so, please identify and describe how the

Department could reduce or eliminate those barriers.

mailto:Brian.Pentecost@ed.gov mailto:Matthew.Lucas@ed.gov

(3) Is there any other information that you wish to convey to the Department?

Information provided will be used solely by the Department as market research and the Department does not intend to release the information outside of the Requirements Team.

Interested parties are strongly advised that the Department is not seeking proprietary information. All information contained in this announcement is preliminary as well as subject to modification and is in no way binding on the Government. Failure to respond to this notice will not preclude an interested party in participating in a future related or unrelated solicitation.

Vendor Questions