High School Equivalency Records

REQUEST FOR APPLICATION 6100065974

• Project Title: High School Equivalency Records

• Project Manager: Amanda Harrison

• Project: Bureau of Postsecondary and Adult Education – Division of Adult Education

PROJECT OVERVIEW:

The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) is seeking a solution for the receipt, generation, distribution, and secure storage of high school equivalency records, transcripts, and credentials. The purpose of this Request for Application (RFA) is to solicit submissions to provide these services and to provide customer service and assistance to record holders and requesters; receive daily data transfers from PDE’s approved publishers; transfer data to PDE upon request; provide statistical reports upon request; provide real-time (live) database authorization to authorized PDE staff; and communicate with PDE regarding irregularities and solutions at no cost to the Commonwealth. The successful vendor will maintain the database of records for the PDE high school equivalency assessment test data and will be the centralized and legal storage of information of all PDE high school equivalency assessment test data for all publishers and all test series data from 1942 to the present. The vendor will be the exclusive provider of document fulfillment for PDE for all publishers.

The approximate number of records and or communications is as follows:

• 4,000 communications per year

• 35,000 document request distributions per year.

• 10,000 third party verifications per year.

• 110,000 record uploads from testing vendors per year.

TERM OF CONTRACT:

The term of this agreement will commence on August 1, 2026, or the date of the last Commonwealth signature, whichever is later (“Effective Date”), and will remain in effect until June 30, 2031 (the “Expiration Date”), unless sooner terminated in accordance with paragraph 27 of the IT Terms and Conditions.

REQUIREMENTS:

Must have at least 10 years of experience handling state-level high school equivalency records for states.

EXPECTATIONS:

Customer Service:

1. Must provide routine customer assistance at no cost to the customer. Customer requested research for tests may be assessed fees.

2. Must provide and manage a secure, individual self-service website accessible 24/7 for testers to access their records and request documents.

3. Must provide a real-time (live) option for customer support during normal business hours.

4. Must assist testers who have issues with information in records by providing guidance and contacting PDE for approval prior to making corrections.

5. Must provide a visible transaction history to all test takers.

6. Complete and submit an Accessibility Compliance Report (ACR) based on the latest available version of the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)

• All digital content and services must comply with Section 508 Standards (Revised) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Levels A and AA.

• Digital content and services not meeting aforementioned standards must be identified with a remediation plan and addressed accordingly.

Records Management:

1. Must receive, manage, secure, and store high school equivalency assessment data for all publishers of high school equivalency assessment tests approved by PDE for the sole purpose of providing comprehensive secure document services.

2. Must have a transfer system to receive all historical data files (electronic and paper).

a. Vendor will accept transfers of historic records throughout the contract period.

b. Vendor will be the final repository for high school equivalency assessment records and is solely liable for the security of the records unless PDE retains possession of the documents.

3. Must research state approved high school equivalency data as necessary to satisfy customer requests.

4. Must have a process to invalidate scores and credentials, as necessary, when notified by PDE that a test publisher has revoked one or more scores for a test taker.

5. Must provide general statistical, volume, and data reports to PDE as needed.

Database capacity:

1. Must provide PDE’s authorized staff with access to a real-time (live) database for updating, inserting, reviewing, verifying, and reporting.

2. Must provide a database that does not solely rely on Social Security Numbers.

3. Must provide a database that identifies potential tester matches and corrects identified and reported errors.

4. Must provide a database system that allows for the entry of comments in individual tester records by the vendor or PDE.

5. Must provide a database system that allows PDE to upload documents for record-keeping purposes.

6. Must receive daily data transfers from all publishers authorized by PDE to provide state approved high school equivalency assessments. The publishers are responsible for transmitting the data to a secure FTP site provided and maintained by the contractor.

a. Data is transmitted as XML files or another agreed upon format.

b. The daily transfer is scheduled at a mutually agreed time.

c. There are no costs associated with data transmission.

7. Must transfer test taker data to PDE at a frequency and format requested by PDE.

8. Must provide a reporting system to allow authorized PDE staff to enter 30 College Credit applications and data into its system.

9. Must have the capacity to determine test and credential status for all test takers, high school equivalency tests publishers, and high school equivalency test versions included in Pennsylvania’s record.

10. Must have the capacity to determine test and credential status resulting from combinations of high school equivalency test publishers, versions, subtests, and languages as determined by PDE and to provide a transcript and diploma as a result of the combined test results. Current combinations include:

a. Combining test results across the 2002 Series GED test and the 2014 GED test

b. Combining test results across the 2014 GED test and HiSET exam, including Spanish and English versions of the 2014 GED test and HiSET exam.

11. Must ensure database will have all data encrypted while at rest or in transit.

Communication:

1. Must be able to respond within one hour to PDE/HSE office during normal business hours.

2. Must communicate with PDE regarding issues and concerns with requested documents.

3. Must communicate directly with the test vendors regarding issues with the test vendor daily uploads.

4. Must immediately contact PDE/HSE office with any issues communicating with the test vendors.

5. Must provide pricing for all documents and any anticipated increases to those prices within the contract period. Price increases must be communicated to PDE and to the customer no later than six months prior to the increases.

6. Must provide weekly reports to PDE identifying irregularities in the daily uploads or other irregularities identified using its own internal system.

Records/Documents:

1. Must be able to generate high school equivalency diplomas and transcripts that meet all PDE requirements, including those awarded by combining subtests from all approved high school equivalency test publishers, by combining Spanish and English subtests, under the grandfathering option, and the 30 College Credit option

2. Must use transcripts, diplomas, and documents approved by PDE.

3. Must provide secure and fraud protection on all diplomas including a tracking method and a unique diploma number.

4. Must provide fraud protection on all official transcripts.

5. Must provide one official complimentary (free) initial/original diploma and transcript to test takers.

6. Must email all new high school equivalency test passers and successful 30 College Credit Program applicants regarding the process to obtain their initial free diploma and transcript.

7. Must provide duplicate official diplomas and transcript services.

8. Must provide document distribution by email, US mail, and next day delivery.

9. Must provide bulk mail delivery for institutional diplomas and transcripts upon request.

10. Must provide a process whereby qualified/authorized third-party agencies can verify test taker records or purchase test taker documents.

Verification/Corrections:

1. Must provide a portal for editing state specific business rules and current PDE document signatures.

2. Must provide interstate jurisdiction access for corrections.

3. Must have a process to verify Pennsylvania residency for test takers who passed the high school equivalency tests via on-line proctoring prior to awarding the credential and issuing documentation.

4. Will make corrections to tester records only when approved and authorized by PDE.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR APPLICANTS:

PDE Responsibilities:

1. PDE is not to be liable for lost or mishandled records during vendor transport. Custodial authority does not equate ownership but assumes that PDE maintains ownership of the records, because PDE is the legal agency that authorizes the credential and authorizes the publishers. All test taker personal data and test results are the property of PDE to include credentials and transcripts.

2. PDE will replace all references to the current high school equivalency assessment test document process with vendor links.

3. PDE will update its webpages that provide information on how to attain duplicate documents and link to the vendor website.

4. The vendor shall not disseminate or publish any data related to test takers without the prior approval of PDE. The vendor shall not utilize any such data for marketing, or any other purpose, without PDE’s prior written consent.

Confidentiality/Information Security:

1. The vendor shall maintain the confidentiality of all PDE and student data. The vendor shall have a written plan to maintain the confidentiality of such data and monitor, prevent and deter unauthorized disclosure of such data. In the event of any impermissible disclosure, loss or destruction of confidential information, the vendor must immediately notify PDE and take all reasonable steps to mitigate any potential harm or further disclosure, loss or destruction of such confidential information. In addition, pertaining to the unauthorized access, use, release, or disclosure of data, the vendor shall comply with state and federal data breach notifications regulations and is to report security incidents to PDE within one business day of when vendor knew of such unauthorized access, use, release, or disclosure of data.

2. The Vendor shall comply with the Commonwealth’s Vendor Security Requirements, as it pertains to Non- Commonwealth Hosted Applications/Services, which is attached hereto as Exhibit B of the IT Terms and Conditions.

Turnover Tasks:

1. Vendor must assist PDE with all activities required to transfer all records and materials, both pre-existing and newly developed, to PDE or Successor Contractor upon termination or expiration of the contract.

2. Vendor must provide, in its proposal, a Turnover Plan that addresses the tasks outlined above. The final Turnover Plans will be subject to the review and approval of PDE.

Due Dates:

To be considered for this solicitation, the vendor must submit their response via email to the PDE's Procurement Office. Email submissions should be sent to Michele Warford Division Chief, Division of Procurement and Accounts Payable, who will serve as Point of Contact on this RFA at: mametranow@pa.gov. Electronic RFAs must be received by July 6, 2026, at 4:00 PM EST. Timing for evaluating responses depends on the quantity and quality of responses received.

Responses should be succinct, preferably no more than 150 pages, but must include all information requested, cover sheet, attachments and any appendix. A technical manual can also be submitted as a separate document and not be included in the initial 150 pages for your submission.

Once the Commonwealth has received the RFA, it will contact all respondents

determined to be reasonably responsive and may require additional points of clarification at that time.

Questions and Answers:

We request that you submit any questions regarding this solicitation by 12:00 pm EST, June 17, 2026 . An Addendum will be posted to the DGS website with the answers to the questions by COB Wednesday, June 24, 2026. Questions should be emailed to Michele Warford (mametranow@pa.gov). Please reference solicitation number 6100065974 in the subject.