The South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) intends to purchase training, administration, scoring, and reporting services for three 4K assessments to be administered during the 2021-2022 school year. Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS™) will be purchased from Illuminate Education, Inc. Individual Growth and Development Indicators of Early Literacy (myIGDIs™) will be purchased from Renaissance Learning. GOLD® will be purchased from Teaching Strategies, LLC. The total estimated dollar amount of the purchase is $500,000.

S.C. Code § 59-155-150 requires that students entering publicly funded prekindergarten and kindergarten beginning must be administered a readiness assessment by the forty-fifth day of the school year.

Proviso 1A.55, included in H. 4100, General Appropriations Bill, Fiscal Year 2021-2022 as passed by the House of Representatives on March 24, 2021, requires that the South Carolina Department of Education manage the administration of assessments that analyze the early literacy and language development of children in publicly funded prekindergarten as done in the prior fiscal year. The three 4K assessments administered for 2020-21, were PALS, myIGDIs, and GOLD.

This notice will be posted in the South Carolina Business Opportunities (SCBO) as required by SC Code 11-35-1560.

This Notice of Intent to Sole Source is to determine the availability of vendors able to provide the requested supplies and services. Please send responses via e-mail to SC Department of Education, Attn.: Elsie Montgomery, Procurement Director, at EMontgomery@ed.sc.gov for this Intent to Sole Source no later the date and time listed here.

PROTESTS:

If you are aggrieved in connection with the intended award or 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 five (5) business days of the date this notice is posted, and (ii) submit your actual protest within fifteen days of the date this 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. The grounds of the protest and the relief requested must be set forth with enough particularity to give notice of the issues to be decided. Any protest or notice of intent to protest must be addressed to the Chief Procurement Officer, Materials Management Office, and submitted in writing:

(a) by email to: protest-mmo@mmo.state.sc.us

(b) by post or delivery to: 1201 Main Street, Suite 600, Columbia, SC 29201