College and Career Readiness Tool

The Vendor is required to provide web-based college and career readiness (CCR) platform must serve as the primary vehicle for student self-discovery, academic planning, and the tracking and reporting of CCR milestones as defined by the blueprint for state future.
- Platform access and performance
•    Web-based accessibility: the solution shall be a secure, web-based portal accessible to students, staff, and families in grades 9-12 (required), with age-appropriate exploration options for grades k-5 (optional) and 6-8 (required). 
•    System availability: the solution shall be continuously available to all users with a guaranteed up time of 99.8% year-round. 
•    The solution must provide a pro-rated invoice credit for any unscheduled downtime. 
•    Mobile responsiveness: the solution must be 100% mobile-responsive, ensuring students and parents can access all core functions, including search and sign-up tools, via mobile devices. 
•    Accessibility and language: the solution must comply with WCAG 2.1 standards and all search functions and assessments must be available in multiple languages. 
•    Communication tools must also include text-to-speech capabilities and closed captioning for any video content. 
•    Authentication: the solution shall support single sign-on (SSO) and delegated authentication via active directory®, synergy®, and clever® for all user roles. 
•    If county moves to a different platform in the future, the solution will problem solve and work to provide seamless authentication. 
•    If a user changes their name, email address, etc., there should be minimal disruption in their ability to access the service. 
•    If not using clever for authentication, SAML or OAUTH via google or Microsoft should be clearly delineated as the option.
- Administrative, communication, and academic tools
•    Synergy sis integration: execute a nightly, bi-directional data sync with synergy sis for demographics, course history, test scores and GPA. 
•    The ability to customize synergy integration based on evolving blueprint mandates will also be required. 
•    Advanced communication: enable staff to send filtered, scheduled, and automated emails or reminders to students and families based on criteria such as race, gender, career area of interest, GPA, or grade level. 
•    Survey and portfolio builder: provide customizable survey tools (e.g., for AP registration or senior surveys) and a digital portfolio feature that allows students to export resumes to Microsoft word or google docs. 
•    The digital portfolio feature must include an easy-to-use resume building tool that allows students to build, customize, and save their resume over time. 
•    Academic planning: include a smart goal template with calendar integration (outlook/google) and a course projection feature aligned with career aspirations. 
•    Micro-credentialing and digital badging: the solution shall support the issuance and storage of digital micro-credentials or badges. 
•    These must be assignable to students upon completion of specific milestones and must be exportable to the student's digital portfolio for review by potential employers or colleges.
- College planning, document management and data (critical requirements)
•    Electronic document submission: facilitate the secure transmission of transcripts, school profiles, and recommendations to post-secondary institutions, the military, and employers. 
•    Integration partnerships: maintain seamless, bi-directional integration with the common app, common black college app, Quest-bridge, coalition for college and parchment. 
•    If not all are available, reasonable alternatives should be available for students and staff. 
•    Transcript request controls: enable administrators and staff to fulfill requests while maintaining the ability to restrict releases if a "parental release of records" form is not on file. 
•    College and career visit coordination: provide tools for staff to manage sign-ups for college visits, including the ability to export attendee data and integrate with third-party tools like RepVisits. 
•    The platform must also provide a shared database of college, career and military representatives that does not require the representatives to pay a fee to access. 
•    NCAA eligibility tracking: solution shall provide functionality to track student eligibility requirements in compliance with NCAA standards. 
•    Reporting and data accessibility: the solution shall include a reporting and data module that allows district and school-level staff to access, collect, and view key data points. 
•    This module must be flexible and able to generate modifiable data visualizations, dashboards, and spreadsheets. 
•    Scholarship management and tracking: the solution must include a portal that allows for district managed scholarship opportunities to be viewed by all students and parents. 
•    It must also allow for local school-managed entries and provide functionality for tracking scholarship application outcomes by individual schools and the district. 
•    Bulk document upload capability: the solution should be capable of importing a high volume of document files (e.g., transcripts) for large groups of students at one time and must be compatible with synergy sis or future sis.