The Fullerton School District is proud to be a founding member of the Education Technology Joint Powers Authority. Jeremy Davis, Assistant Superintendent of Innovation and Instructional Support, currently sits on the board with Mike McAdam, Director of Purchasing, Warehouse & Transportation, as the backup to the board as needed.  Below is more information about JPA.

Introduction and Definition of a JPA

A Joint Powers Authority ("JPA") is a limited-purpose government agency formed by an agreement between two or more government agencies. JPAs have a long history in California, and have been allowed since 1949. Many school districts are members of insurance and transportation JPAs.  EdTech JPA endeavors to streamline procurement for digital products and services.

The purpose of Ed Tech JPA

School districts, county offices of education and vendors often separately negotiate contract terms, pricing, and data privacy agreements for digital education products and services. This piecemeal approach results in educational agencies and vendors spending time and resources, drafting and responding to lengthy bid documents,  negotiating individual contract terms, and incurring additional legal expenses in vetting vendors' data use policies to ensure the protection of student privacy. Ed Tech JPA provides all California educational agencies with the opportunity to leverage consortium contracts to save time and resources, while insuring data privacy and public procurement laws are followed. 

The main purpose of Ed Tech JPA is to negotiate competitively priced digital technology contracts. Using the California procurement process, Ed Tech JPA will award master agreements through a Request for Proposal (“RFP”)  to several highly qualified vendors in each category of services. Ed Tech JPA will further require all vendors who receive student data to adopt the California Student Data Privacy Agreement (“CSDPA”) to ensure compliance with all state and federal student data privacy laws. Currently any public school district in California has the opportunity to become an Associate Member of the JPA and access the digital products at the JPA negotiated prices.

Benefits to School Districts from the JPA

1. Procurement Savings: Ed Tech JPA centralizes the technology procurement process, including the preparation of RFPs, vendor selection process, and contract negotiations. A centralized procurement process saves member agencies procurement costs that they would normally bear separately in individualized transactions.

2. Price Savings: Because of the number of students and districts involved, the JPA seeks to obtain products and services at an economical cost, thereby creating additional savings for member Districts.

3. Privacy and Security: All vendors are required to sign the California Student Data Privacy Agreement (CSDPA), which provides comprehensive data privacy and security protections for student data. While we are perhaps approaching a tipping point, this requirement has intrinsic value to all school districts because there is still considerable resistance by vendors in agreeing to proper privacy protections in their dealings with individual districts.

Benefits to Vendors from the JPA

1. Procurement Savings: Vendors will respond to one RFP which multiple school districts will be able to review and utilize. The volume of Proposals created by each Vendor will diminish, resulting in more time to focus on product development and support. The decreased burden of the RFP process on School Districts may result in additional business for Vendors.

2. Standard Pricing and Security: Vendors will set pricing in Proposals, and sign a CSDPA that all Districts may piggyback on. In establishing uniform pricing and privacy and security policies Vendors will set a standard that can be referred to all clients.