RFQ 27ITS81MP01 ITS81 Category 3 DESE Website Modernization Services

The Executive Office of Education (EOE) on behalf of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is soliciting proposals for website modernization services under RFQ 27ITS81MP01, with proposals due September 28, 2026 at 1:00 PM and questions due September 8, 2026. This RFQ is restricted to vendors on the statewide ITS81 contract — a mandatory cooperative-purchasing vehicle eligibility requirement.

Mandatory minimum qualifications include a minimum of three years of experience delivering enterprise-wide website modernization projects within the past five years, including at least one government agency project, and demonstrated experience implementing at least one Drupal solution hosted on AWS. All proposed project staff must meet the three-year threshold. CORI background checks are required for all vendor and subcontractor personnel with access to EOE data and information systems, with disqualifying criminal convictions including data security and privacy violations, computer crimes, intellectual property violations, white-collar crimes, violent felonies, and identity theft; assault and battery convictions disqualify staff unless the conviction occurred more than five years prior.

The modernization project spans four phases — Business Requirements Refinement (4–6 weeks), Solution Architecture Design (6–8 weeks), Implementation with Prototype (10–14 weeks), and Data and Content Migration (4–6 weeks) — with bidders able to propose pricing for individual phases or all phases. The DESE website currently comprises approximately 3,000 webpages and 12,000 downloadable documents managed by 54 content providers. The solution must migrate to Drupal 11 hosted on AWS with serverless and containerized deployment via AWS ECS Fargate, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD pipeline integration, and alignment with the Massachusetts Design System. All deliverables must achieve WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 Level A and AA compliance, with vendors required to submit an Accessibility Conformance Report based on the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template no more than 12 months old. Vendors must provide remediation of any identified accessibility violations at no additional cost and indemnify the Commonwealth against accessibility failures, with vendor liability capped at the greater of $100,000 or two times total contract value.

Bidders must submit firm-fixed-price proposals for each phase using the cost response workbook and separate hourly rates for key resources (rates must remain constant for the first three years, with subsequent increases capped at 3% annually). Proposal components include cover letter, narrative business response addressing seven specified items, business requirements and technical requirements narratives each limited to five pages, cost proposal not exceeding two pages, full resumes for key personnel, and three vendor references. Finalist bidders will present live demonstrations of comparable large-scale Drupal website modernization projects via remote conferencing, with 60 minutes for use case demonstrations and 20 minutes for Q&A. Estimated award is the week of October 20, 2026, with project start November 5, 2026 and production go-live June 30, 2027. The resulting contract may extend to June 30, 2037 for related services.