CPS Policies for Vendor-led Student Services

Chicago Public Schools recently shared additional details about the process vendors must follow in order to provide virtual or in-person services to students this school year.

Note that Ingenuity is just sharing this information. Please reach out to partnerservices@cps.edu for any additional information. Updated guidance as of November 6, 2020:

Standards of Conduct

Everyone who provides services to CPS students is required to adhere to the CPS Standards for Professional Conduct, which may be found here. Service providers are responsible for reviewing and abiding by these standards at all times when engaging with CPS staff and students, either virtually or in person.

Virtual Services: Overview of Vendor Acceptable Use Policy

To ensure the health and safety of our students and their families during this time, the district established a framework for schools to use when engaging with vendors and service providers during remote learning. The framework assigns CPS vendors with a tier status of 0, 1, or 2, which indicates the level of interaction organizations may have with staff, students, and families virtually during remote learning.

• Tier 0: Interaction between the vendor organization and CPS students or families is not permitted at this time because the scope of services cannot be executed remotely. Interaction with CPS staff is permitted.
• Tier 1 (Remote Learning Partner): Conditional interaction with CPS staff, students, and families is permitted. Please see the chart below for more information.
• Tier 2 (Core Partner): Conditional interaction with CPS staff, students, and families is permitted. Please see the chart below for more information. CPS reserves Tier 2 status for those vendors providing services that must be one-on-one and cannot be modified to be provided in a small group setting due to confidentiality and the sharing of protected information, such as mental health services and counseling. For safety and security reasons, we discourage any vendor that does not fall into this category from seeking this level of electronic access to students. If you feel your services do warrant Tier 2 status, please email your rationale to your sponsoring central office department.

If a school or department has determined that a vendor tier change is required for you to provide services, please follow the process below. This process can only be driven by a school or CPS department.

1. Vendors must review the vendor remote tier webinar. After viewing, please contact the school or CPS department to request a tier status change. For more information, please review the webinar FAQ.
2. A designated representative from the school or department will complete a remote tier change form.
3. The network chief, the CPS Principal Quality Office, or the CPS department representative will automatically receive an email notifying them that they need to review the vendor’s status.
4. The network chief, CPS Principal Quality Office, or CPS department representative will update the vendor’s tier status on the tier 1 and 2 spreadsheet to reflect the change (or lack thereof).
5. Procurement will send follow-up emails to the vendors who have received status changes with the Attestation Form via DocuSign.
6. Vendors must sign the Attestation Form via Docusign before providing services to students.
7. Procurement will record tier status updates daily.
8. On a weekly basis, Procurement will record signed Attestation forms in the appropriate tracking form based on the tier.

Please note:

• Although tier status is assigned to the organization itself, cps.edu email addresses and virtual engagement privileges should only be assigned to individuals who are delivering the qualifying services to students. We recognize that vendors may offer different services that qualify for different tier levels—some services may require a cps.edu email and some may not.
• Individuals who are given cps.edu email addresses may not represent themselves as CPS employees and must abide by the Standards of Conduct at all times when interacting with students and families in virtual environments. Additionally, these individuals must not access confidential documents.

Application Process to Provide In-Person Services at School Sites

Vendors may apply to provide in-person services to students at school sites through the below process

Reach out to the school(s) at which you wish to provide in-person services to confirm that the school(s) agrees to accept your services.

Fill out this form for each of the schools at which you wish to provide services. Please note: this form requires an active vendor number. If you do not have an active vendor number, please go to cps.edu/procurement for details on how to become a vendor.

Upon approval, the school principal or network chief will let you know that you are approved to provide services to the school(s) for which you have applied.

As a reminder, any individual you deploy to a school site must have passed a current CPS background check for your organization. If one of your staff members has completed a background check for another organization, their prints must be re-run for your organization.

Please reach out to partnerservices@cps.edu with any questions