BOISE, Idaho — The state of Idaho is now taking applications for the $50-million "Strong Families, Strong Students" program, which helps pay for educational needs related to the coronavirus pandemic. Hundreds of parents applied within hours of Wednesday morning's opening, but there were some delays.
“We've had a tremendous early response,” said Chief Communications and Legislative Affairs Officer for the Idaho State Board of Education Mike Keckler.
He told KTVB that within the first hour of the Strong Families, Strong Students program launching, they received 600 applicants and another 350 were in process.
“We're talking about over 1,200 students this would provide resources for,” Keckler said.
Amanda Weast, a Nampa mother, was among those applicants.
“Myself and about three other friends were all kind of working together and tried different things to get past the glitch,” Weast said.
She said those glitches included problems with the application pages loading and two-to-ten minute delays before getting to the next question.
“We had to reload pages, we had to switch from different devices, we had to make sure our Wi-Fi was off,” Weast explained. “And then with each page that we'd get into we'd have to wait about three minutes after submitting one page to get to the next one.”
She added sometimes the system would boot them off, then they'd have to re-enter everything.
“When you get this sort of volume it's going to slow the system down,” Keckler said. “We knew there would be a response but I don’t think we anticipated it would be this big at this point.”
Keckler said the application team is working on the delays to make the application process as smooth as possible, but despite the delays, the system performed well. He also recommends parents refresh the page and says he appreciates their patience.
“We're working hard to get these resources in the hands of families that will help kids with their education and from the response this is encouraging,” Keckler said.
As for Weast, she said she was able to submit her application two hours later.
“It was difficult and it was a challenge, but for myself, I have four little ones and I’m a single mom and having that help, where we can maybe get Wi-Fi devices that actually connect or add it to our phone lines, even though it was a difficult process it's going to be really helpful to us,” Weast said.
As of Thursday at noon, more than 14,140 people have applied for the program to help Idaho families with education costs caused by COVID-19. The applications are for 29,225 Idaho children, with an average family size of 2.7 children.
Anyone with questions can call 844-649-2921 for help.
Families have until Dec.8 to apply for the program.