The California ELO-P RFP Template Districts Are Using for 2026-27
Every year, California district business services offices sit down to write the 2026-27 Expanded Learning Opportunities Program vendor RFP — and every year the same problem shows up. Broad-language solicitations produce broad-language responses, which produces vendor bids that are impossible to compare side by side. The result is a procurement process that eats weeks and ends with a decision that came down to “who submitted the glossiest deck.” Below is a practical RFP template — the specific sections, evaluation criteria, and pricing structure that produce serious, comparable, apples-to-apples vendor responses. Use it as-is or as a starting point. Everything below assumes an elementary or K-8 district with a mid-to-large ELO-P allocation and a 2026-27 program launch date.
01 / What a strong RFP is actually asking for
Before the sections, the intent. The RFP is not asking the vendor to sell you their brand. It is asking the vendor to describe — in specific, comparable terms — what the district will actually get on the ground, every day, at every site. Every section below is designed to make broad marketing language impossible.
02 / The 12 sections your ELO-P RFP should contain
Section 1 — District Context and Scope. Names the district, the number of TK-6 (or TK-8) campuses, expected enrollment, community demographics, current ELO-P allocation, and whether the RFP is for a single-site pilot or district-wide contract. Sets the frame for everything the vendor is bidding on.
Section 2 — Program Delivery Requirements. Names the required daily hours (typically the whole 3-to-6 PM block), the required non-instructional day coverage (nine hours per day for at least 30 days), the required components (educational/homework, enrichment, nutrition), and the required staff-to-student ratio (typically 1:20 or better). Anything vague here produces bid ambiguity later.
Section 3 — Enrichment Track Design. This is where most RFPs fail. Instead of “provide enrichment programming,” ask the vendor for a specific weekly enrichment schedule at each grade band (TK-K, 1-3, 4-6, and 6-8 if applicable), naming the tracks that will run, the artifact each track ships, the four-week rotation cadence, and how the vendor will match tracks to community context. If the vendor cannot describe this specifically, the vendor is not ready for a Tier 1 contract.
Section 4 — Instructor Model. Ask specifically: what is the vendor’s average annual instructor return rate at existing California sites? What universities does the vendor recruit from? Are instructors hired on full-year employment contracts or per-diem stipends? Is there a named backup at every site? Are all instructors cleared TB, Live Scan, Mandated Reporter before the first day of school? Vendors that answer these questions specifically deliver differently than vendors that write “we are committed to quality staffing.”
Section 5 — Family Communication and Engagement. Ask for the specific weekly artifact the family will receive. What language(s) is it produced in? What is the delivery mechanism (backpack, SMS, email, portal)? How is the vendor measuring family engagement — read rate, response rate, event attendance? Vendors serious about LCAP Priority 3 have a specific answer here.
Section 6 — Quality Assurance and Measurement. Ask which quality frameworks the vendor measures itself against (CDE 12 Quality Standards, Weikart PQA, ASOST-Q are the three the field uses). Ask for a sample PQA composite score from an existing site. Ask for the vendor’s Continuous Quality Improvement cadence. Vendors that decline to share PQA scores are telling you their scores are not strong.
Section 7 — Reporting and Data. Ask for a sample of the weekly attendance report the district services officer would receive. Ask for a sample of the LCAP-facing evidence export. Ask how the vendor tags each session to a California content standard (CCSS-ELA, CCSS-M, NGSS, VAPA, ELD, HE, PE). If the vendor cannot show a live dashboard, the reporting will be a narrative paragraph — and that is what will fail the district at the state visit.
Section 8 — Care Layer and Incident Response. Ask for the vendor’s documented playbook for six specific failure modes: sick instructor, IEP intake, behavioral escalation, materials delay, safety incident, a specific program not landing at a specific campus. Ask for the incident SLA. Vendors that have written playbooks deliver different outcomes than vendors that improvise.
Section 9 — Compliance and Credentials. Ask for a signed compliance attestation (TB, Live Scan, Mandated Reporter for every instructor and lead). Ask for the vendor’s insurance certificates. Ask specifically how the vendor will handle the January 1, 2026 inventory rule for any items purchased at $1,500 or above.
Section 10 — Pricing. Ask for a per-student per-day rate broken out by grade band and by school-year vs summer. Ask for a total annual cost per site at expected enrollment. Ask what is included versus what is billed separately (materials, transportation, meals, insurance, project supplies). Vendors that quote a lump sum are hiding cost structure — get the components explicit before comparison.
Section 11 — References. Ask for three current California district references, with names and contact information for the services officer or ELO-P coordinator who would answer honestly about the vendor’s real performance. Serious vendors provide references without hesitation.
Section 12 — District Walkaway Clause. Include a clause that specifies what happens if the vendor fails to meet quality thresholds at any campus mid-year. Serious vendors welcome this clause. Vendors that resist it are telling you they cannot commit to the outcomes.
03 / The evaluation rubric — how to score responses without falling for the deck
Score every response on the same rubric, on the same 1-5 scale, across the 12 sections. Any vendor scoring below 3 on Sections 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, or 10 should not advance. Below is the specific weighting we recommend.
- Enrichment Track Design (Section 3): 15%
- Instructor Model (Section 4): 15%
- Family Communication (Section 5): 10%
- Quality Assurance and Measurement (Section 6): 10%
- Reporting and Data (Section 7): 10%
- Care Layer and Incident Response (Section 8): 10%
- Pricing (Section 10): 15%
- References (Section 11): 10%
- Compliance (Section 9), Delivery Requirements (Section 2), Walkaway Clause (Section 12) combined: 5%
Weighting Enrichment Track Design and Instructor Model at 15% each — and not weighting brand recognition at all — is what turns the evaluation into an outcome-driven decision, not a marketing decision.
04 / The three questions to ask every finalist in person
Before signing anything with the top-scoring vendor, sit down with them and ask three specific questions. The answers tell you whether the RFP responses match the vendor’s actual operational reality.
1. Take us through what Tuesday actually looked like last week at your closest similar-demographic site. A specific answer with times, activities, and instructor names tells you the operation is real. Vague generalities tell you it is not.
2. Walk us through the last mid-year track that you swapped out because it wasn’t landing. What did you swap it to and why? Serious vendors have this story. Vendors that don’t are running an RFP-response operation, not a program.
3. Tell us about the last California district that walked away from your program in the last three years. Why did they leave, and what did you change afterward? Every serious vendor has one. The willingness to answer honestly is the single most reliable signal in the entire evaluation.
05 / What the timeline should look like
- RFP issued: February 2026 for a Fall 2026 launch. Earlier if the district is running a full district-wide contract.
- Vendor responses due: mid-March 2026, roughly 6 weeks after issuance.
- Scoring committee review: late March / early April.
- Finalist interviews: April.
- Board approval: May.
- Contract execution: June.
- Instructor onboarding: June-July (interview cycle in April-May precedes this).
- First day of program: Fall 2026 first day of school.
06 / What this template is missing on purpose
Three things this template intentionally does not include, because they are the wrong things for a serious RFP to ask for.
A required vendor brand recognition score. Legacy operators bet on this. Serious programs win on the 12 sections above.
A “vendor philosophy” essay section. Every vendor sounds the same in a philosophy essay. Kill the section and every specific answer above becomes easier to score.
A pricing lump sum without component breakdown. Lump sums hide cost structure. Ask for the components explicitly.
07 / This is for you if
You are a business services officer or ELO-P coordinator building the 2026-27 vendor RFP right now.
You are a services officer whose district’s current vendor contract expires at the end of 2025-26 and who is looking at the procurement calendar.
You are a superintendent who has watched RFP processes drag on for months and end with a decision that came down to the wrong criteria.
You are a board member being asked to approve a vendor contract and wanting to know what the evaluation actually should have measured.
08 / What we’d love to do next
If you are building a 2026-27 ELO-P RFP and want a second read on the specific sections and scoring rubric for your district’s context, here is the specific ask.
Give us 15 minutes. On a call. That is it.
In that quarter hour we will walk through the specific 12 sections against your district’s demographic and site profile, flag where the template above should be customized for your context, and share honestly how we would answer the RFP if we were bidding — including the specific pricing structure. You leave the call with a one-page RFP customization note in your inbox, yours to keep, use, or share with your procurement team, regardless of whether we ever work together.
Book the 15-minute RFP customization call →
This piece was published by The Kodely Blog. Kodely designs and runs TK-8 afterschool programs across California, and we respond to district RFPs specifically structured around the sections and evaluation rubric above. If you are building a 2026-27 RFP and want a second read on your solicitation, we are happy to have a conversation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should a California ELO-P RFP include?
Standard requirements: scope of work, program design, staffing model with ratios, insurance minimums, supplement-not-supplant memo, session-level invoicing structure, MWBE utilization statement, references from LEAs of similar size, and audit-response protocol.
What scoring criteria do California ELO-P RFPs typically use?
Common weighting: Program quality 30%, Compliance/audit-readiness 25%, Staffing depth 20%, Pricing 15%, MWBE/DEI 10%.
Should California ELO-P vendors provide session-level invoicing?
Yes. Lump-sum monthly invoicing is where audit findings live. Every session, site, date, and resource code should appear on the invoice. This is essential for cross-fund braiding with Prop 28 (Resource 6770).
What is MWBE utilization language in a California ELO-P RFP?
MWBE (Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprise) utilization statements ask vendors to describe how the contract advances the district’s supplier-diversity policy — either through direct MWBE certification or through subcontracting to MWBE vendors.
When should California districts issue ELO-P RFPs?
Best practice: Q1 (January-March) for a July 1 start. Q4 procurement cycles (October-December) work for spring intersession-only contracts.
Related reading from Kodely
- the 9 green flags to score on
- the top California ELO-P vendors comparison
- the 8 California ELO-P compliance trip wires
About the author
Sri Akash Kalimili is the founder of Kodely, a MWBE-certified K-8 STEM and arts enrichment provider currently operating at 40+ California districts across ELO-P, Prop 28, CCSPP, and LREBG. Kodely delivers school-day, afterschool, and non-schoolday coverage with itemized session-level invoicing coded to specific funding lanes and supplement-not-supplant memos included in every scope of work.
This post is a working operator’s reference based on programming we run daily at California district partners. It is not legal or fiscal advice. Every statute citation has been verified against primary sources (leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, CDE.ca.gov, EAAP.ca.gov). Always verify current law with your CBO and district counsel.