Sign Massachusetts RFP Now

Document type sign rfp massachusetts now

hello hello everyone thanks for joining us today for the 2018 clean energy activity day webinar well today we'll be going over in detail the RFP that's currently out on the street so you can learn more about the solicitation and answer questions you might have before we start could everyone just please confirm that the audio is working can you let us know that a chat box really quick to make sure that you can hear us can everybody hear me okay I don't see any responses can someone just write in if you can hear me or not so we can make sure that we're actually audio is working great thanks everybody appreciate that so right without further ado we'll dive in I am Andrew Chabot the senior program manager for workforce development here at math CC I'm joined by Tameka Jacques the director of workforce development at Massey see also joining us later in the in the webinar will be Michael Murphy director of water innovation here Massey who will be giving some some feedback on a potential Avenue to take for the upcoming solicitation but today again just we wanted to give you an overview of this solicitation on the street and answered questions and let you know about some logistics of the RFP if you have any questions please do type it into the questions box we'll be holding all questions until the end and we'll go through them in the order that received so please any questions that come to mind please type those in during the webinars and we'll be able to answer it at the end also keeping in mind that we might answer your question during the webinar so just please be aware of that so to give a little bit more of an overview of Matt Fifi we've been around since 2009 we're created by the 2008 green Jobs Act and our goal is to promote clean energy jobs in the state of Massachusetts we do that through a variety of different means geared towards adopting you know renewable energy systems through residences residents businesses communities connecting everybody serving as a nexus for the industry so that people can find one another and to help spur innovation by providing some grants to upcoming new prototypes and technology and crucially what we do in workforce is we work to help train the next generation of clean energy workers through right different means that there's our our internship program our high school learning and earn program and now increasingly with the clean energy activity day which is focused on students K through eight this is the second year will be running clean and GX TV today we had a very successful first year so we're very excited to see kind of what the next year will bring and see what kind of new projects are going to come down the pipeline but you for us we're really focused on making sure that you know the next generation of workers does have the training they need they're exposed to clean energy and they get excited as earlier in earlier age which is some of the feedback we've received from employers today moving on to kind of talk a little bit about the current state of the workforce and the industry in Massachusetts roughly about 105 thousand jobs in Massachusetts are clean energy jobs resulting in a value over 25 thousand systems installed these jobs pay very well the median wage is $50,000 and I should say most individuals make if you have noticed and from 2015 and 2016 they grew the jobs grew six percent which outpaces the general employment figures Massachusetts and nationally and has shown strong growth since we started recording numbers back in 2010 and also we know we're very strong in the energy efficiency realm where the American Council for an energy-efficient economy has ranked us now this is a up to seven years in a row ranked number one for energy efficiency policy and just the work we've been doing so we're trying to keep the momentum going and the work we do is really geared towards you know making sure that the industry continues to grow and what we hope to you know have results from this particular solicitation is that students can get exposed to community earlier and earlier to get interested so that can provide them a pathway towards getting into the sector long term and moving on from that I'd like to officially bring a Tomica into webinar and producer so she can start telling you a bit more about the RFP itself thanks Andrew so I'm going to lead you through the steps that must be included in the RFP what I'm sorry not the RFP it's already in the RF people what your application or proposal should look like when you are sending it to math CEC in December so just a little bit you know speaking with Andrew of what Andrew said the goal really of this program is to provide a hands-on learning activity for students in kindergarten through eighth grade we want to be able to expose those students to clean energy concepts career pathways higher education pathways through a one day you know educational event and when we say one day it's more usually between three and four hours that this event takes place so it's a little bit less than one day depending on the track that you choose which we'll talk about a little bit at the end so it really is to expose these students at an early age to the industry of clean energy we know it's very vast and we want to be able to break down the sector's to these students so that you know they're not learning about finding out what clean energy is or learning about clean energy with a tactical we're trying to expose them as early as possible so how it works or what we're going to be looking for is we're looking for a team from each elementary school or middle school to come up with a program which is the clean energy activity day and what that looks like is that your team should have one main you know point of contact and we're calling that position a program coordinator that person is located at the applicant school that person serves as a main contact organizes the planning hours works with math CEC if your application gets accepted we will you know help out as much as we can as you're planning your day so that person really is the contact form at CEC along with at minimum two additional team members who can assist you in your day now I just want to talk a little bit about team members it can be someone from your school it can be a business it can be a higher education partner this person really helps shape your day helps coordinate schedules in the past I know that you know we have a mandatory on the RFP that two additional team members need to be part of this application one of the schools last year I remember meeting with some of their team members and I believe there was money as 10 team members that participated as you know implementing the day because they chose to educate over 250 students so you know it took that many people to kind of coordinate the logistics again because of you know we understand teachers restrictions and requirements you know program coordinators team members are allowed to receive a stipend for their time because some of this work oftentimes has to be done after your school day and so part of the funding on this application is that you we will allow fun to be used to pay the program coordinator and your additional team members as I mentioned before it's not necessarily a one-day you know eight hour you can formulate a day but the minimum we're asking is three hours to specialize in a clean-energy activity day event and depending on which track you take track one it's up to eight thousand dollars and that is usually held Monday through Friday and then up to ten thousand is track two it provides the hands-on learning you know activity again at your school last year just for example we didn't have any schools that went to a business the businesses came to them or it can be at a clean-energy business what's often times it might be a little you know heavy to do that because then you have to coordinate the transportation of buses so it's great if it does happen at your school and we've just found in the past that a lot of times instead of lumping in someone that's in kindergarten with eighth grade you know depending on you know they all have different learning skills because of their age it's a little easier if you break it down you know from kindergarten to fourth grade or fifth grade to eighth grade that way you know you're teaching at their level and so again you know a requirement is that you have to partner with a clean-energy business and we do have a few businesses that are in the RFP that have said we would love you know for a school to reach out to us and you know ask us to come to their school and talk about clean energy to talk about the industry that they're in last year I know that kid wind from UMass Lowell they attended two schools to talk about wind and that worked out well and so this year we would like to ask fools to consider partnering with a water innovation company and so I'm just going to talk a little bit about how you have an opportunity to do something new that we have not done before so I'm going to turn it over to our director of water innovation Michael Murphy who's just going to talk about a little bit about the opportunity that you know could be available to you if you're saying you know I have an I have no idea how to coordinate this we don't have any business contacts I see that you know there's names in there where do I start we actually have someone in the room that can help you with that and his contact information is in the last slide it's an email and I just want to ask that you strictly contact him about you know water innovation bringing them to your school he will not be able to answer any of the other questions in the RFP that that is a better suited towards me my email back at the end of the the presentation as well so will will show you what that is what that is right but as Andrew said we'll discuss that a little later but Michael is going to talk about some of the opportunities that he can connect you with regarding water innovations Thank You Tamika it's good to have the opportunity to speak with all youth today just a few minutes on wife Massie she has a water innovation program that will help kind of shape the context a little bit we have a water innovation program simply because of the water energy Nexus so it requires a massive amount of water to generate electricity and on the opposite side it requires a massive amount of electricity to treat and move water so we do a range of water projects all related to water treatment and the wastewater sector a little bit in the drinking water side and then we've discussed maybe doing some stormwater work so that's a very quick backdrop one of the things that we really do every day is to help connect the community of water stakeholders so schools universities entrepreneurs company large and small and help connect and help coalesce the industry and so how that relates to you is if you decide that this is an interesting topic that you would like to take on for your your school what we will do is help you both prepare a well come up with ideas that are great appropriate and then also connect with a company or a professional organization that can help deliver on the program for the day that you choose at your school so you know a range of ideas in sort of a macro sense would be you know the water cycle let's let's say you probably teach this to some regard or some level at your school but really kind of diving in on the water cycle where water comes from where it goes and what happens to it along that journey most people surprisingly don't have much of an idea on what is happening to their water before it enters their house and what happens to it after it leaves their house and so there's all kinds of really great activities that we could propose and put together that would help you know you know students learn this very valuable lesson and then one thing that we've seen is that once kids learn it they really take it home and they teach their parents who often don't know as much about this as you might think they do so what we will commit to do if you decide that this is a topic that you would like to work on with your students is help find a partner help with an idea that we can flesh out and build build upon and then curate and execute the program and so we have many contacts and in the space and and we haven't reached out yet to ask companies and organizations if this is something they would want to do but I'm not worried in the least that we you know wouldn't find interested companies this is something that a lot of people like to do we like to teach and get into schools and and see the kids learn these learn about water so I'll stop right there is there anything that I missed to make our Andrew would you like me to know those excellent and that's just something for everyone to consider on the call today that's a good option for for a topic for your clean energy activity day and doesn't actually solar does not to be storage winds it can definitely be water technology and we found that's the the students typically love yesterday and we could also focus on the water energy Nexus we could teach you know how you're going to pump water by using solar energy or something like that and and have that as an activity that would be pretty interesting so there's a lot of things that we can do we can just do treatment we can do the water cycle so give it some thought I can be reached at M M Murphy at Massey C Oregon it sounds like my email address is on the slide at the end and I'll be happy to answer questions great thank you Thanks yes so based on a little bit about what Michael talked about we're looking for you to bring in to clean energy speakers to your day again the business the business speakers to be able to provide an engaging story of their career explain their work as you know sometimes you know children have a limited capacity of listening to you know various speakers so we really want to make sure as could winded last year that they are able to engage the students you know some of this we can talk about in the budget involves you know providing prizes during you know the speaking engagements during the activities that are happening that's kind of the funding application as well that we allow for fun so it really needs to be something engaging that kids can listen to and then be able to apply what they've kind of learned from the speakers and the industry and what they're doing and then having a you know a hands-on activity after and one quick point of clarification is that we do say two speakers from a clean-energy business can come and present this has come up in the past they will you have to be two speakers from two different businesses not the same company because we want the students to be exposed to a wider variety of speakers of companies than just you know two people from the same company or some entities so please just keep that in mind as you focus and usually businesses will donate their time because they love to work with different schools so we're asking if you can find a business that would not mind donating their time so that the funds really can go into you know planning your day and making sure that your students have their equipment with them because it's just it takes away from the overall day if you have to pay a business but we do understand if you find a business that you know really is seeking you know needs to be investment if it's travel or gas you know depending on what it is it's not something that you can't do we would just like for you to get a business that wouldn't mind donating their time so after the speakers have taken place um the way it was done the first round is that students were doing different activities for instance one school concentrated on solar and so they were building solar frogs and there is different example from the RFP of equipment that can be used that you can purchase I will say from previous experience if equipment says that you know this is sixth grade level I would encourage you to go down to grade so if you're looking to do equipment with sixth graders I probably look at equipment that fourth grade is to do it really depends on how much time you are going to designate to the hands-on learning activity in the past the chool's gave you know 30 to 45 minutes for some of the schools the schools probably that had the most success depending on how how the equipment is probably gave about an hour and a half without equipment to be used you know for instance if it was a solar-powered frog there's a lot of different pieces that need to be put together and students you know if they don't see it coming together they can get frustrated so just think in terms of equipment that you're ordering you know might be good to order one to get a sample and then you how to put it together you know later on you know if you are awarded you try to put it together and just see you know how long it takes you and then you can kind of base it off so you're really suggesting to messy easy equipment that is going to fit your fit your grade so again if you're looking for something for sixth grade you probably want to you know look for equipment that would be good for fourth graders and I think that's a really critical point that everyone should just you know pause and think about because you know the way it was set up last year's students were working on their projects sometimes they would have to you know take a break from that go do different activity come back to working the projects may take a while to kind of get back up and running but really again to tamika's point the most successful projects are the ones where the students were actually able to complete it you know kind of a first pass or by at least by the end of the day we did have a few projects that were overly comfortable more complicated and certainly we were anticipating and I had problems putting some of these things together so I can only imagine so you know how difficult meant and for some others but you know also there will be volunteers it would be there to help students see and progress so again to make its point you know try to put it together yourself if you can do it then at least you could help them go through the process of constructing it but you know some of those parts are very small and just to talk about the equipment the way that you can purchase the equipment this is in the RFP but there's three different options so you have the option to purchase the equipment or the models students can construct the equipment there at school and then they take it home so that that's option one option two is that the school is purchasing the equipment the students are constructing it and students are not allowed to take home the equipment because you are going to it's going to be stored for future use so you're bringing it out that day to the students if it's a fifth grade class if you're say for example that you're writing an application and you just want to concentrate on your fifth graders for that day you know based on capacity but you would like to be able to use the equipment again for the sixth graders on another day that would be auction - so students are you know playing with the equipment it's packed back up and it's kept at your school for future use or the third is is that you're you know you're buying equipment for the students they get to take something home something tangible hands-on they can talk bring it home to their parents and also the school is buying equipment to keep some of that equipment located after school so that you also can use for future use so there is different equipment options you know based on what kind of equipment that you find out there that we don't have there's nothing that we're recommending to you per se there is some equipment in the back of your RFP of some you know examples of what you could buy or purchase but depending on what sector you choose that's really how you're going to decide what is the best hands-on project to work with so we're not going to dictate to you what you should be purchasing we just want you to be mindful of the grade that you are requesting the industry and what it's going to really take to get that equipment up and running for such a and you know as part of that day we in our standard requirements we would like when the students are done we want every student to leave with a gift bag and you know I'm saying right now that you should be able to come up with a plastic bag maybe it has your school logo on it that you'll be able to the students to be able to take home with them to share with their parents on information on you know public higher education that is around them or community colleges that cater to them in science major and so that could be you know an admission brochure admission look information on stem camps that is in your region so if you're located in Boston you're looking for you know stem programs that happen during the summer so that parents are where they can send their children to a stem camp if you're in the western side of Massachusetts you're looking for stem programs that are around around your region as well as any museums or libraries you know some of them have exhibits on the different sectors of clean energy it could be the Museum of Science as well as we Massey EC will send you information to be included in the bags on some of our programs and just optional items could be you know pens with the names of the company you can ask the company to bring names or if they have notebooks or if they have logos or if they have prizes some companies might have a t-shirt to give away so just you know think that the student can really walk away with last year math CEC was able to provide bags and t-shirts to the students so we're not we're not sure if we're going to do that again this year so I would just like you to include that in your plan in your budget and then if messy C decides to provide the bags and the t-shirts then you can you know put that allocate that funding elsewhere but I would like to see that in your budget Massie C we'll work with you on developing an outreach and public strategy we like our programs to be showcased and a lot of times you know if you want to invite you know your state representatives to this program or your mayor or alert you know your your your press in your area we welcome that and we will when your application is awarded we will give further details on this our communications team will do a webinar with you just to explain what Massie will expect and how our communications piece will be carried out as you are awarded an application again this is all in the RFP we are looking to fund up to ten schools this year last year we did six if you're doing track one you can be funding up to $8,000 per application and if you're doing track two which is on a Saturday which most people kind of don't necessarily want to be doing this on a Saturday you are awarded a little bit more because we know that you'll have to probably entice you know the parents and the students to come out so it takes a little bit more to get students and parents out on on a Saturday in your budget you are allowed to include lunch and snack expenses we like this to be capped at $1000 in total so if you're going to be providing pizza for your students that day or if you or your snacks would be you know if your hands in writing candy or I don't know what's the healthy snack a healthy snack or their function carrot happen ahead to these students we would like that to be capped at $1000 so because again we want this really to be something that is really the cost are going to the day so just as a reminder event cost can include planning hours for the program coordinator stipends for your business speakers or your your team members field trip expenses if you're a thing we're going to go to a business buses and operational costs that can be included we did include something new in the RFP video we asked you to come up with a field trip that you could take your students to that is separate from this on eight thousand dollars per application so you're going to write in your application what your day was going to look like and then on the RFP you're also going to put on another request separately from this application of if you could take your students on a field trip where would you take them so if you are in the Boston area you know you would go to the Museum of Science because you want to see there there's solar exhibit if you are located you know down the Cape you want to maybe go to mass maritime because they have a great you know sustainability campus and they have a wind turbine on their campus so that's a separate request what would that look like once you go through your day and you want to put a give a bonus to your students and all this information is looking in the RFP and just a simple who was eligible any Massachusetts elementary middle schools that are private and public you are eligible to apply kindergarten through eighth grade if some I know different school systems you know middle school is with the high school that is okay as long as you are focusing on the sixth seventh and eighth grade students just different setups but it really is any Massachusetts private and public school and then just some important dates for you the proposal is due Friday December 8th 4 p.m. there's instructions on what needs to happen we like to love electronic copies of your application one should be in Word one should be in PDF format and my email address is located in the RFP and one quick thing I wanna note also is up here is a deadline for written questions all questions that we do not get a chance to answer in this webinar or that come to you after the webinar concludes please send them to me no later than Tuesday October 17 4:00 p.m. I won't I will answer everyone's questions and the email response to responding to them but also post all those questions received from everyone in a general Q&A document that will be posted on our website after we you know all the questions have been received on October 17 we will not be able to receive and answer any additional questions to level the playing field for all interested parties so please keep that in mind all questions you know get us into into us by the 17th and then it'll all be online posted on the 24th I then send it directly to me and then I just wanted to before we I know we have the contact information listed I just want to call out attachment G in the RFP and I think this page is important because this was taken from our information on attachment G and the RFP is taking from teachers that participated last year with us and it's just a few comments for you to look at it really do which equipment was too much you know for instance one you know teacher said the solar car bill was too much for a half hour time slot if another build is to be you know comp I think it's mostly completed so complicated the schedule needs to accommodate a bigger a bigger window which might mean more stations in the rotation so I just want you to take a look at attachment G as you're writing your app your application because I think that the teachers comments were very insightful all six worth that we funded last year was successful program in the applications just lessons learned teacher said that they would wanted to do the event you know February March I think that you know waiting till a later date so you can really plan out your day kind of works best but again I you know better what works for your school depending on if the school you know has testing on certain days I think if you're able to suggest you know in your application you're going to suggest a date to us if you're able to push those dates out you know until April May or June I think it really works best because then you have a lot of planning time from the time that Massie EC calls you to award your application which is early January it gives you you know three solid months to really plan your day to get your speakers to get your equipment so that's just you know little tips that I just wanted to give that out to you once you know you if you are awarded you are about to change your date but we just want to try to get as many date solidified as possible so you have until June 30 if you have until the end of your school year whatever day it is depending on snow days have not come in yet and you probably should plan for our snow day actually because snow days do happen in Massachusetts so just keep that in mind that if you know when you are suggesting to us a date you know with the backup date because snow days do happen and your town is sitting and you want to make sure that you're prepared for that so if you have any questions I'm going to open up for you to write any questions we look forward to your applications and your questions you can ask questions right now if you're on this webinar if not we look forward to seeing your questions through email I look forward to seeing your partnership with our water innovation industry and so with that thank you for participating great and so thanks everybody so now we're going to enter in the Q&A section of the webinar we have some good questions that came in so far I'm going to just go through them you order received please write in the questions box on your screen if you'd like us to get to your question and we'll let's start right now so first question we have is is profiling one type of clean energy during the activity day preferred and the answer is no no specific clean energy technologies preferred that's some grade a other one but you're free to highlight more than one if you wish you could do a wind and solar storage and water innovation so feel free to do more than one it's not a problem but you know you're not limited to any one particular particular technology and then second question we have is will math CC be available to help consult on how to successfully hold the event yes as Tameka said earlier in the webinar we are available to work with you you know one way award of applicants we're going to be discussing with you and outreach strategy strategy on participation and we'll be taking it from there so that is something we'll be working closely with you and will be a resource to answer questions you have and then you know related to previous sessions that have already have already occurred so next question we have is is there a maximum student number we can include for the event Tameka a maximum number we can include so yeah no no maximum number you can have as many students participate as you as you wish and that way you know as long as they're all getting a good good chance that the day and they're learning over the course of a is no limit at all to how many you can break so I just want to do a question from the questions that is popping up the slide deck will be available on Massey c-calm when we post a webinar the webinar will be up on the website shortly and it will also have the slide deck attached to it great thanks to me good yes they'll be up on our website and then looks like we have a question doing more with the overall industry I says do men and women have salary equity in the one hundred and five thousand existing jobs I would recommend everyone take a look at our clean energy industry reports in 2016 which is currently hosted on our website they have more information on how the jobs breakdown the state of the industry really that is your best resource for how to learn more about where the the current situation is for for people currently working in the state moving on so what would be a good example of a prize to give away to students during you that that's a great question we saw last year so he can correct me if I'm wrong if anything pops up but we had a smaller gifts kind of be offered to students you know threw it out there to see kind of what you know nothing overly expensive was fine but gift cards worked fine and usually what we did is we had a brief I guess kind of non award but I you know question section of the of the day where the students we may be pricked three or four students from the crowd and then they've got to answer a very simple question on clean energy and we will provide them with I think a water bottle clean energy internship water bottle we had or other other gifts that you think are more appropriate can also be made available to them great and so only a few more questions feel free to ask any more that come come to mind one this is a great question is there a limit to how many schools can apply together for instance could six elementary schools within the same district apply together I have a great question we want as many schools participating as possible but if you do have multiple schools participating each one will need to submit their own independent application to participate now we view every application independently and we weight against the criteria we've established that fell through in the RFP but we would need to see each individual application come in for each individual school which I anticipate would also have would also have different dates and different participants so good questions ah the last question right now is could the events be set up so 300 students visit the event for one hour each rather than a hundred students for the full three hours so interesting so having basically more students but attend only part of the day versus fewer students attend all the day and our strong preference against me could correct me if I'm wrong is that we would want to have smaller number of students participate in a full day versus a large number of students participate only part of the day we want them to be exposed to the speaker's the hands-on activities the other learning activities during the day and we wouldn't feel comfortable being able to kind of carve it up and having students pick and choose you know you know which section of the day that goes to so please keep that in mind they your students that are participating would be needing to participate in full deck depending on the final number of you you aim for great so that's all the questions we have any last-minute questions please send them in right now otherwise on behalf of Tameka and Michael and the rest of the work force team here at math CC I want to thank everybody for their time today for taking the time another day to learn more about the solicitation again please email all questions that come to you after the webinar to meeting my emails right here bye bye I think the incorrect on the top of the screen the deadline should be October 17th we'll post it October 24th but you know what as long as it comes in before the 24th will we'll be able to take care so don't worry too much about the 17th school will take care you so I would use October 24th which is posted here and the presentation adds actually date to keep alive to the questions and lastly December 8th 4 p.m. is the day to keep in your mind for when the applications will be due to us and any questions just let us know but again thanks and take care everybody