school-district · MI
Bay-Arenac ISD
Great Lakes Bay STEM Career Exposure Resource Hub, Digital Repository, and Communications Toolkit
- Winner
- Stoa Works LLC
- Selected / Stoa
- $44,000 / $44,000
- Awarded
- 2026-07-13
Evidence
Official award source ↗“Approve the RFP Award Recommendation for the Great Lakes Bay STEM Career Exposure Resource Hub.”
Still looking for: selection rationale, evaluation scores, proposal or finalist count, prior work with buyer.
The offer
Price in context
- Selected offer
- $44,000
- Stoa offer
- $44,000
- Difference
- $0 · 0.0%
- Recurring, selected / Stoa
- Not public / $2,000
The selected fixed fee matched Stoa’s submitted $44,000. Optional support was proposed at $2,000 per year after the included first year; no recurring option is recorded as awarded.
The firm
Who they are
Stoa Works LLC · Campbell, California
1 person · independent studio
Not the incumbent · out of state
How they operate: A one-person, founder-led software studio; Stephen Stanwood leads research, design, development, and delivery, using specialist tools and review where useful.
Relevant history: Stoa builds community-facing tools, public-data systems, and accessible websites for cities, public agencies, and nonprofits; its public portfolio shows the working systems behind that practice.
Firm website ↗The fit
Why this offer worked
The agency has not published its selection rationale.
- Proposals
- —
- Finalists
- —
- Selected score
- —
- Stoa score
- —
Scope: Design, development, implementation, and transition of the Great Lakes Bay STEM Career Exposure Resource Hub, digital repository, and communications toolkit.
Public documents
Promises in the documents
- Accessibility and inclusive service
ADA and Section 508 / WCAG 2.1 AA compliance as a release gate on every deliverable, verified by axe-core and manual testing
Evidence: “ADA and Section 508 compliance as a condition of every deliverable, content item, template, and graphic” (p. 1)
- Community and stakeholder engagement
Deliver a launch and communication plan to drive awareness among educators, students, families, and partners
Evidence: “launch and communication plan... designed to drive awareness and use among educators, students, families” (p. 8)
- Content strategy and governance
Deliver Website Architecture & Content Strategy document with navigation, tagging taxonomy, and per-audience user pathways
Evidence: “Stoa delivers the Website Architecture and Content Strategy document required by item 11” (p. 6)
- Hosting, security, and resilience
Build a clean, documented, standards-based stack designed to outlast the grant with no proprietary lock-in
Evidence: “a clean, documented, standards-based stack; a taxonomy staff can extend” (p. 8)
- Content or data migration
Organize, migrate, upload, tag, categorize, and format initial content from the ISD and regional partners
Evidence: “Stoa organizes, migrates, uploads, tags, categorizes, and formats the initial content” (p. 7)
- Other material promise
Build five audience-specific destinations (Video Library, Educator, Family, Mobile Museum, Partner Showcase) from the shared tagged library
Evidence: “the audience-specific centers the RFP requires, each pulling from the same tagged library” (p. 6)
- Other material promise
Deliver all source files, branding assets, editable templates, content libraries, and full IP rights to the ISD
Evidence: “delivery of all source files, branding assets, editable templates, documentation, content libraries, and intellectual property rights” (p. 1)
- Other material promise
Provide a user-friendly, standards-based CMS so non-technical staff update the hub independently with no proprietary lock-in
Evidence: “The hub runs on a user-friendly CMS... without touching code” (p. 7)
- Project management and communication
Work through scheduled meetings, milestone reviews, and design approvals with a single accountable builder as point of contact
Evidence: “scheduled project meetings, milestone reviews, and design approvals the RFP describes” (p. 8)
- Search or AI-assisted service
Instant, typo-tolerant faceted search across a tagged resource library with live-recomputing counts, filter chips, sorting, and deep links
Evidence: “instant, typo-tolerant search across a seeded corpus... every record tagged on all five facets” (p. 1)
- SEO, analytics, and measurement
Integrate privacy-respecting website analytics and reporting on traffic, resource utilization, and engagement
Evidence: “Stoa integrates privacy-respecting website analytics and reporting” (p. 8)
- Ongoing support and continuous improvement
Offer optional ongoing maintenance and support at $2,000/year with the first year included; independence, not retainer
Evidence: “optional ongoing maintenance and support at $2,000/year, with the first year included” (p. 10)
- Delivery timeline and milestones
Complete all deliverables, training, and transition no later than September 25, 2026, on a milestone schedule
Evidence: “completing all deliverables, administrator training, and transition no later than September 25, 2026” (p. 1)
- Training and documentation
Train designated ISD staff and deliver documentation, administrative procedures, and user guides
Evidence: “trains designated Bay-Arenac ISD personnel on website administration, content updates, resource management” (p. 8)
- Brand and visual design
Create a fresh Great Lakes Bay regional brand and produce the full eight-piece communications toolkit as editable files
Evidence: “creates the Great Lakes Bay STEM brand fresh... produces the full eight-piece communications toolkit” (p. 6)