Student ELA and Math Assessments for BIE
ID: 140A2325R0033Type: Solicitation
Overview

Buyer

INTERIOR, DEPARTMENT OF THEBUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRSINDIAN EDUCATION ACQUISITION OFFICEAlbuquerque, NM, 87104, USA

NAICS

Educational Support Services (611710)

PSC

EDUCATION/TRAINING- OTHER (U099)

Set Aside

Total Small Business Set-Aside (FAR 19.5) (SBA)
Timeline
    Description

    The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), part of the Department of the Interior, is seeking proposals for student assessments in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics for BIE-funded schools, covering the 2025-26 to 2029-30 school years. The contractor will be responsible for delivering both Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) assessments and potentially customized assessments, ensuring alignment with BIE standards while providing administration, scoring, reporting, training, and helpdesk services. This procurement is crucial for enhancing educational outcomes for approximately 38,000 students across 183 schools, emphasizing compliance with federal regulations and privacy standards. Interested parties must submit their proposals by July 10, 2025, and can contact Michelle Nahlee-Marshalek at michelle.nahlee@bie.edu for further information.

    Point(s) of Contact
    Nahlee-Marshalek, Michelle
    michelle.nahlee@bie.edu
    Files
    Title
    Posted
    The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) seeks a contractor to provide comprehensive assessments in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics for students in BIE-funded schools from the 2025-26 to 2029-30 school years. The contractor will deliver both Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) assessments and potentially customized assessments, ensuring they align with BIE standards. Key objectives include administration, scoring, reporting, training, and helpdesk services for a variety of assessments. The contractor is responsible for a secure online Student Registration Portal that interacts with BIE’s Student Information System, managing assessment data and providing necessary training. Deliverables must follow strict timelines, with regular updates and compliance with federal and privacy regulations, including privacy protection under FERPA and implementing security measures per NIST standards. The document outlines quality assurance requirements, project management protocols, and communication strategies, emphasizing the contractor's accountability in maintaining assessment quality and accuracy. Overall, BIE aims to enhance educational outcomes for Native American students while adhering to compliance and data protection standards throughout the contract.
    The document presents a pricing schedule for the Bureau of Indian Education's ELA/Math Assessment services for BIE schools. It details a firm fixed-price contract structure alongside time and materials (T&M) contract line items (CLINs) for various assessment components and services. The pricing schedule is subdivided into categories, specifying quantities needed for each service, including paper and online assessments for English Language Arts (ELA) and Math, student registration portals, reporting services, and project management. Additionally, optional services like research papers and interactive dashboards are mentioned. The total estimated price is indicated as $110,000, reflecting both base year costs and anticipated expenses over the subsequent optional years (OY1 to OY4). The structure emphasizes transparency in pricing, allowing for strategic budget planning for educational assessments, which aligns with federal initiatives to enhance assessment methods in educational institutions serving Native American students. The document underlines the commitment to providing comprehensive educational resources and services.
    The document outlines the Performance Requirement Summary (PRS) for a government contract, detailing expectations and standards for the contractor's performance in assessment services for students under the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE). The key components include a kickoff meeting within 10 business days of the award, clear communication of assessment results, data quality collaboration, annual reconciliation of student data, and compliance with privacy and accessibility requirements. Specific tasks include the development of assessment reports in various formats, maintaining a secure data transmission process, providing technical support, and conducting training for educators. All tasks must meet or exceed an Acceptable Quality Level (AQL) of 100% with various inspection methods to ensure compliance. Measures such as system logon warnings, incident reporting for security, and annual assessments are also mandated. The document emphasizes the contractor’s responsibilities for data exchange quality, adherence to privacy laws, and ownership of intellectual property created under the contract, ultimately framing a comprehensive approach to improving educational assessment processes for BIE students while maintaining stringent security and compliance standards.
    The U.S. Department of the Interior has issued mandatory Information Technology Baseline Compliance Contract Guidelines to enhance information security controls for IT services provided by contractors. The memorandum outlines the roles and responsibilities for monitoring and reporting on contracted IT systems, ensuring compliance with DOI's cybersecurity and privacy standards, aligned with NIST guidelines. Key requirements include incident reporting, adherence to the Privacy Act of 1974, compliance with accessibility standards for ICT, and managing Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). Contractors must also undergo security clearance equivalent to federal employee standards and provide training for their personnel. Furthermore, contractors responsible for meeting privacy controls and reporting incidents of PII breaches are essential for safeguarding sensitive data. The guidelines emphasize continuous monitoring, security training, and adherence to federal regulations for securing IT services, ensuring that all contractors engage with existing policies and provide necessary documentation. These comprehensive requirements reflect the DOI's commitment to maintaining robust cybersecurity and data privacy standards while outsourcing IT services.
    The Foundation Cloud Hosting Services II (FCHS2) document outlines the requirements for contractors providing cloud services to the Department of the Interior (DOI). Emphasizing compliance with federal cybersecurity standards, including the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and guidelines from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the attachment details service level agreements (SLAs) for security, accessibility, availability, and performance. Contractors must propose measures for ensuring secure cloud hosting, including zero-trust security plans, multi-factor authentication, and a disaster recovery plan. Key areas include requirements for accessibility under Section 508, data management strategies, compliance with FIPS 140-2 and 140-3, and provisions for protecting personally identifiable information (PII). The document also emphasizes the need for continuous monitoring, regular security assessments, and incident reporting protocols. Contractors are expected to provide robust proposals that detail their methodologies for meeting minimum service levels and managing security risks while fostering transparency and accountability through accurate telemetry and reporting mechanisms. This RFP reflects the government's aim to leverage cloud technology securely and efficiently while maintaining the highest standards of data integrity and privacy.
    The document outlines the essential educational standards adopted by the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), specifically the College and Career Ready Standards in both Mathematics and English Language Arts for K-12 education. It provides direct links to the full standards documents for further review: the Math Standards and the English Language Arts Standards. These standards aim to ensure that students are adequately prepared for post-secondary education and the workforce, underscoring the BIE's commitment to improving educational outcomes for Native American students. The structure of the document is straightforward, consisting of links that facilitate access to comprehensive standards that serve as a framework for curriculum development and instructional practices within BIE-operated schools.
    The document outlines the essential characteristics and functions of data warehouses, emphasizing their role as centralized repositories that integrate and transform data from various sources for analysis. Key features include improved decision-making through comprehensive data views, enhanced reporting capabilities, data consistency, reduced data silos, and scalability to accommodate large data volumes. Data warehouses support business intelligence activities by enabling efficient querying and analysis, essential for organizations to derive insights from both current and historical data. The summary highlights that data warehouses are critical components in the context of government RFPs, federal grants, and state/local RFPs, ensuring reliable data access and informed decision-making processes across governmental agencies. Overall, effective use of data warehouses can significantly improve organizational performance and operational efficiencies.
    The Non-disclosure Agreement between the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs/Education and contractor personnel is designed to protect controlled unclassified information, including Personally Identifiable Information. The agreement outlines the obligations of contractor employees regarding the handling and confidentiality of sensitive information acquired during their contract. Key conditions include not disclosing sensitive data to unauthorized individuals, limiting access to what is necessary for task performance, and ensuring that any use of knowledge gained from the contract undergoes security review prior to publication. The document mandates that all non-public information must be returned upon contract completion and emphasizes that violations may lead to serious legal repercussions. This agreement is vital in upholding national interests while allowing contractors to access necessary information for government projects in the context of federal RFPs and grants.
    The government solicits proposals via an RFP for Enhancing Educational Assessments in ELA and Math, originally posted on SAM.gov, with responses due by June 9, 2025. Current services are provided by NCS Pearson, Inc. under a contract worth approximately $18 million, expiring on September 30, 2025. The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) seeks a COTS platform for assessments, retaining intellectual property rights for developed items. Approximately 38,000 students from 183 BIE-funded schools are expected to participate, necessitating adaptability for various student needs. Assessment delivery will include online formats, with limitations for schools due to bandwidth issues requiring potential paper-based assessments. The BIE emphasizes customization to align with tribal priorities and mandates a comprehensive training structure, including regional sessions. The RFP is a Total Small Business set-aside, confirming a preference for dedicated cloud infrastructure and addressing learning management system compatibility in training processes. This procurement aims to innovate the BIE assessment systems while ensuring compliance with educational standards and operational efficiencies in supporting Indigenous students.
    This document serves as an amendment to solicitation number 140A2325R0033, issued by the Indian Education Acquisition Office in Albuquerque, NM. The primary objective of the amendment is to provide answers to vendor inquiries, included in an attached Q&A sheet, while specifying that the proposal submission deadline remains June 9, 2025. The period of performance for the resulting contract is scheduled from October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026. Key procedural details include the requirement for contractors to acknowledge receipt of this amendment via specific methods prior to the offer submission deadline. The context emphasizes the need for compliance with administrative changes and the significance of timely communication in the proposal process, as late acknowledgment could result in disqualification of offers. This amendment aligns with standard practices to ensure transparency and clarity in the federal procurement process, reinforcing the importance of active engagement from prospective bidders in communication and compliance.
    The document is an amendment to a solicitation, specifically modifying the proposal submission date for a government contract. The amendment changes the proposal due date from June 6, 2025, to June 9, 2025, restoring the original due date as specified in the solicitation and associated documents. It also ensures that contractors acknowledge receipt of the amendment to avoid rejection of their offers. The terms remain largely unchanged, except for this date correction. The period of performance for the contract is set from October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026. The amendment details the procedures for acknowledgment and submission of changes to offers, underlining the importance of adhering to specified timelines. This document reflects standard practices in federal procurement, ensuring transparency and clarity in communication between the issuing office and contractors.
    The document serves as an amendment to a solicitation regarding a contract and modifies an existing contract/order. It highlights a change in competition status from a small business set-aside to unrestricted competition and extends the bid submission deadline from June 9, 2025, to July 10, 2025. The period of performance for the contract is set from October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026. The amendment specifies that all offerors must acknowledge receipt of this amendment by various means before the designated deadline to ensure their offers are considered valid. The primary focus of this amendment is to adjust the terms of the solicitation to facilitate broader participation, thereby enhancing the procurement process by allowing more bidders to compete for the contract. This modification underscores the government's effort to ensure effective competition in federal contracting while complying with procurement regulations.
    The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for student assessments in English Language Arts (ELA) and Math for the 2026/2027 school year. This contract aims to provide assessment services and is structured as a hybrid contract with a base year (October 1, 2025 - September 30, 2026) and four option years extending to September 30, 2030. Proposals will be evaluated based on the Best Value, Tradeoff Process as per FAR regulations. The successful contractor will provide both Firm Fixed Price (FFP) and Time and Material (T&M) costs for services, including optional assessments, which will also be available in subsequent years. The contract outlines requirements for travel authorization in line with Federal Travel Regulations, specifies that it is for non-personal services, and emphasizes the contractor's responsibility for quality control and compliance with confidentiality standards. Additionally, all contract personnel must adhere to specific operational guidelines, including contractor identification, adherence to Federal systems, and safeguarding sensitive information. This RFP illustrates the government’s commitment to enhancing educational assessment capabilities across its funded schools.
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