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UCF Wants a Data Coach for 50 Schools Across Florida: Inside the Community Partnership Schools ITN

The University of Central Florida is looking for a consulting partner to bring improvement science and continuous improvement practices to its statewide Community Partnership Schools network — and the contract structure tells us a lot about where education procurement is heading.

Why This Procurement Matters Beyond Higher Ed

When most people think of Florida government contracting, they think of state agencies — DMS, FDOT, DCF. But some of the most interesting procurement opportunities in Florida come from the state university system, and this one from the University of Central Florida deserves attention.

On April 21, 2026, UCF released ITN 2025-12DCSA — an Invitation to Negotiate for Data-Driven Continuous Improvement and Technical Assistance Services for Community Partnership Schools. If that title sounds like a mouthful, let me translate: UCF wants to hire a consulting firm to help up to 50 schools across Florida get better at using data to improve outcomes for students and families.

But this isn’t just another consulting engagement. The scope, the contract structure, and the evaluation criteria reveal a procurement that’s been carefully designed to produce lasting results — not just a stack of reports that collect dust on a shelf.

What Are Community Partnership Schools?

Before we get into the procurement details, it’s worth understanding what UCF has built here.

The Community Partnership Schools (CPS) model is a place-based strategy that transforms traditional schools into community hubs. Each CPS site brings together a school district, a nonprofit lead partner, a healthcare provider, and a university partner to deliver integrated services — academic support, health and wellness resources, family engagement programs, and expanded learning opportunities — all coordinated through the school.

UCF’s Center for Community Schools, housed within the College of Community Innovation and Education, currently operates this model across 50 sites statewide. These schools span urban, suburban, and rural settings, each with its own demographic profile, community assets, and implementation challenges.

It’s an ambitious model. And like any ambitious model operating at scale, the challenge isn’t just doing the work — it’s knowing whether the work is actually making a difference, and adjusting course when it isn’t.

That’s where this procurement comes in.

What UCF Is Looking For

The selected vendor will deliver a multi-year engagement built around improvement science principles — the same continuous improvement methodologies used in healthcare quality improvement and increasingly in K-12 education. The scope includes several interconnected service areas.

Personalized coaching for each school site. The vendor will provide dedicated advisory support to CPS Directors and leadership teams at each participating school. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all webinar series — it’s regular, hands-on coaching tailored to each site’s specific context and challenges. Monthly virtual coaching sessions are the baseline expectation.

Data tools and continuous improvement processes. The vendor must implement structured tools for collecting, analyzing, and using data to drive decisions. Think standardized instruments, progress monitoring dashboards, and actionable analytics — not just raw numbers, but insights that site directors can actually act on.

Cross-site learning networks. One of the most valuable aspects of a 50-site model is the potential for peer learning. The vendor will facilitate communities of practice, convenings, and other structures that allow CPS leaders to share what’s working, troubleshoot what isn’t, and learn from each other. This includes bi-annual in-person convenings and annual summits that bring site directors together with their school principals.

The train-the-trainer endgame. Here’s what makes this procurement especially well-designed. UCF isn’t just buying consulting services — they’re buying a pathway to independence. The scope explicitly requires a structured capacity-building component that engages UCF’s own Technical Assistance Program Managers in coaching sessions and network learning. The goal is to transfer expertise so that UCF staff can eventually sustain these practices without the external vendor.

The deliverable that crystallizes this intent: a Final Strategic Playbook to support the transition to a sustainable train-the-trainer model. UCF is telling vendors upfront — your success means we eventually won’t need you anymore. That’s a sign of a procurement designed for long-term impact, not vendor dependency.

The ITN Structure: What Vendors Need to Know

This is an Invitation to Negotiate, not an RFP or an ITB — and that distinction matters. Under Florida’s procurement framework, an ITN is used when the agency can describe the desired outcome but wants qualified firms to propose their own solutions. It also gives UCF the flexibility to negotiate with one or more responsive proposers before making a final award.

Here are the key structural details:

Contract term. The initial contract runs from approximately July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2028 — a two-year engagement. UCF may renew or extend the contract, with renewals not to exceed five years or twice the original term, whichever is longer.

Submission platform. Proposals must be submitted through UCF’s Bonfire Web Portal — not MFMP. This is common for university procurements but trips up vendors accustomed to working exclusively through MyFloridaMarketPlace. The deadline is May 21, 2026 at 3:00 PM, and UCF strongly recommends starting your upload at least one day before the deadline.

No travel reimbursement. This is buried in Section 2.42 and reinforced in the pricing instructions: the university will not reimburse travel, meals, or lodging expenses. With bi-annual in-person convenings and annual summits as required deliverables, plus potential on-site work across 50 schools statewide, vendors need to build all travel costs into their fixed fee. Miss this detail and your margins disappear fast.

Fixed fee structure. UCF wants a fixed fee proposal with billing rates broken out by personnel category. Any ancillary expenses must be listed separately. This is straightforward, but the no-travel-reimbursement policy means your pricing needs to account for a geographically distributed engagement across the entire state of Florida.

How Proposals Will Be Evaluated

The evaluation criteria tell you everything about what UCF values in this engagement:

Two things jump out immediately.

First, project approach carries the most weight at 30 points — more than any other single criterion. UCF wants to see a well-thought-out methodology with clear timelines, staffing plans, and deliverables. Generic boilerplate about “leveraging synergies” won’t score well here. You need a detailed, credible plan that demonstrates you understand the unique challenges of supporting 50 geographically dispersed school sites with varying needs.

Second, qualifications of both the firm and the staff are weighted equally at 20 points each — and combined, they outweigh pricing. UCF is buying expertise. They want to know that your organization has done this kind of work before and that the specific people assigned to the account have the credentials and experience to deliver. The ITN specifically asks for experience with “community school models or comparable place-based, multi-stakeholder school partnership initiatives.” If that doesn’t describe your firm’s track record, this may not be your opportunity.

Pricing at 20 points signals that cost matters but isn’t the primary driver. UCF is looking for best value, not lowest price — which makes sense for a consulting engagement where the quality of the people and the approach determines whether the investment pays off.

And don’t overlook the 10 points for conformance to ITN conditions. UCF’s Appendix I requires respondents to initial every single section of the terms and conditions as either agreed or disagreed. Failure to submit this appendix — or to initial every section — can result in rejection. It’s a small administrative detail that can torpedo an otherwise strong proposal.

Strategic Considerations for Prospective Vendors

The competitive landscape is narrow but specialized. Firms that combine expertise in improvement science, K-12 education consulting, community schools, and multi-site technical assistance delivery are a relatively small pool. If you have genuine experience in this intersection, the competition may be thinner than you’d expect for a university of UCF’s size.

University procurements play by different rules. UCF follows the Board of Governors regulations, not Chapter 287, Florida Statutes. The protest procedures, evaluation processes, and contract terms differ from state agency procurements in ways that can catch vendors off guard. For example, UCF’s protest bond is 10% of the estimated contract value, $10,000, or 10% of the estimated expenditure during the contract term — whichever is less. That’s more favorable than many state agency protest bond requirements, but you need to know the rules before you need them.

The Decision Maker has broad discretion. Under UCF’s ITN process, the evaluators score proposals independently, but the Decision Maker (the Vice President, Dean, or designee) reviews the scores and makes the final call. The Decision Maker “may give deference to the scoring forms” but is not bound by them. This means that even if you score highest on paper, the final decision rests with someone who will evaluate whether your proposal is genuinely in UCF’s best interest. Substance over form.

Think about sustainability from the start. The train-the-trainer requirement isn’t an afterthought — it’s central to the engagement. Vendors who demonstrate a genuine commitment to building UCF’s internal capacity will stand out from those whose business model depends on perpetual engagement. Your proposal should articulate not just what you’ll deliver during the contract, but what UCF will be able to do independently after it ends.

Key Dates

• ITN Advertised: April 21, 2026
• Last Day for Questions: May 1, 2026 at 12:00 PM
• Responses to Inquiries/Addenda: May 7, 2026 at 3:00 PM
• Proposals Due: May 21, 2026 at 3:00 PM (via Bonfire Portal)

All communications must be directed in writing to Stefanie DelGiudice at [email protected].

The Bottom Line

This UCF procurement is worth watching for two reasons.

For vendors in the education consulting and improvement science space, it’s a genuine opportunity to partner with one of the largest universities in the country on a nationally recognized community schools initiative — 50 sites, diverse communities, and a mandate to build sustainable, data-driven improvement systems.

For the rest of us, it’s a case study in thoughtful procurement design. UCF structured this ITN to prioritize expertise over price, require a concrete methodology over vague promises, and build in an exit strategy through the train-the-trainer model. Too many government procurements buy services without thinking about what happens when the contract ends. UCF clearly has.

Whether you’re bidding on this opportunity or simply studying how Florida’s public institutions are buying consulting services, there’s something to learn here.