Winthrop University (Winthrop) Teacher Education Program seeks to establish a residency program that can be financially sustained and achieve long-term effectiveness in recruiting, preparing, and retaining teachers in South Carolina (SC). Key to the ability to grow high-quality residencies in SC is the question of their affordability and sustainability. Few people can afford to spend a year, unpaid, learning to teach. Building high-quality programs that SC's potential future teachers cannot afford to attend will not help address the teacher shortage, teacher diversity, and teacher quality challenges the State faces. The project, to be successful beyond the term of the grant, needs to help partnerships develop sustainable resources so candidates receive a stipend to live on while learning to teach so that they can attract strong future teachers into their new residency programs. To meet partners’ needs to identify sustainable resources for their residencies, NetSERVE identified four key services that the project would need:
Only one group in the nation focuses directly on the financial sustainability of residency programs—Prepared To Teach: Sustainable Funding for Quality teacher Preparation. Housed at Bank Street College and focused on this issue for four years, Prepared To Teach has led the nation’s awareness of the issue of candidates’ financial burdens. They have built the models that programs and districts are now using to find sustainable resources for residencies so that quality programs can exist regardless of grant funding. They are the national experts on this topic, leading keynotes and featured panels at national conferences, serving as the experts for reporters and policymakers on the question of teacher residency sustainability, developing the research needed to grow sustainably funded residencies, and facilitating partnerships’ work to find sustainable funding sources. No other group does this work. It is the intent of Winthrop to sole source these services in accordance with Regulation 19-445.2105 (B) (5) where the item is one of a kind. Estimated value: $475,000 for the period 1/1/20 – 9/30/24.
If you are aggrieved in connection with the award of the contract, you may be entitled to protest, but only as provided in Section 11-35-4210. To protest an award, you must (i) submit notice of your intent to protest within 7 business days of the date the award notice is posted, and (ii) submit your actual protest within fifteen days of the date the award notice is posted. Days are calculated as provided in Section 11-35-310(13). Both protests and notices of intent to protest must be in writing and must be received by the appropriate Chief Procurement Officer within the time provided. See clause entitled “Protest-CPO”. The grounds of the protest and the relief requested must be set forth with enough particularity to give notice of the issues to be decidedAny protest or notice of intent to protest must be addressed to the Chief Procurement Officer, Information Technology Management Office, and submitted in writing (a) by email to: protest-mmo@mmo.state.sc.us or (b) by post or delivery to: 1201 Main Street, Suite 600, Columbia, SC 29201.