COMMUNITY We believe that joining together as public agencies with a focus on common goals is a powerful way to support each other.
ACCESS We believe that streamlined procurement processes and choice allows public agencies to select solutions that best meet their needs
EQUITY We believe that all public agencies should have access to high quality technology at the lowest cost.
TRUST We act responsibly to advance public interests, safeguard student privacy and upholding public procurement laws.
The Purpose of the Ed Tech JPA
School districts, county offices of education and vendors often separately negotiate contract terms, pricing, and data privacy agreements for digital education products and services. This piecemeal approach results in educational agencies and vendors spending time and resources, drafting and responding to lengthy bid documents, negotiating individual contract terms, and incurring additional legal expenses in vetting vendors' data use policies to ensure the protection of student privacy. Ed Tech JPA provides all California educational agencies with the opportunity to leverage consortium contracts to save time and resources, while insuring data privacy and public procurement laws are followed.
The main purpose of Ed Tech JPA is to negotiate competitively priced digital technology contracts. Using the California procurement process, Ed Tech JPA will award master agreements through a Request for Proposal (“RFP”) to highly qualified vendors in each category of services. Ed Tech JPA will further require all vendors who receive student data to adopt the Standard Student Data Privacy Agreement (“NDPA”) to ensure compliance with all state and federal student data privacy laws. Currently any public school district in California has the opportunity to become an Associate Member of the JPA and access the digital products at the JPA negotiated prices. Members have the assurance that all agreements negotiated by the Ed Tech JPA have been reviewed for state and federal data privacy compliance by information technology and data privacy legal experts in the eMatters team at Fagen Friedman & Fulfrost (F3).
Benefits to School Districts from the JPA
1. Procurement Savings: Ed Tech JPA centralizes the technology procurement process, including the preparation of RFPs, vendor selection process, and contract negotiations. A centralized procurement process saves member agencies procurement costs that they would normally bear separately in individualized transactions.
2. Price Savings: Because of the number of students and districts involved, the JPA seeks to obtain products and services at an economical cost, thereby creating additional savings for Members.
3. Privacy and Security: All vendors are required to sign the Standard Student Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA), which provides comprehensive data privacy and security protections for student data.
Benefits to Vendors from the JPA
1. Procurement Savings: Vendors will respond to one RFP which multiple school districts will be able to review and utilize. Vendors have less need to draft lengthy, individual proposals. Instead educational agencies can work directly with Vendors to identify the best-fit product to meet their needs and move forward with an expedited purchase and implementation process. Educational agencies' ability to leverage a Master Agreement, without additional RFP or purchasing requirements, will broaden Vendors' potential customer pool and reduce the time and resources required secure sales.
2. Standard Pricing and Security: Vendors will set pricing in Proposals, and sign a Master Agreement that all Districts may leverage to purchase products and services. In establishing uniform pricing and contract terms, Vendors will set a standard that can easily be referred to all clients.
3. Privacy and Security: By signing the Standard Student Data Privacy Agreement Vendors (including Exhibit E - General Offer of Terms), Vendors can be confident that their agreements will meet educational agencies privacy requirements. By executing one agreement that all California educational agencies can leverage, Vendors may save time and resources.
Procurement Code
Ed Tech JPA complies with Public Contract Code §20118.2 and Government Code §6500 and §6502. The legal experts with the eMatters team at Fagen Friedman & Fulfrost (F3) have provided extensive guidance since the inception of Ed Tech JPA.
Ed Tech JPA Bylaws and W-9 are available upon request.