UPDATE 8/22/23: If you're waiting to hear back from Step Up about your PEP award

I just posted an update today that sort of addresses this (though it doesn't answer ALL your questions): https://www.flhef.org/forum/pep-faq/update-9-11-2023-how-many-pep-scholarships-have-been-awarded-so-far-are-there-still-spots-available Aside from double-checking that you've completed all the steps, I'd advise that you keep checking in with Step Up until you can get a clear answer on whether there are any further issues with your application.

Thank you! A few days ago we received an automated email letting us know one of the applications would be expiring soon after being on hold for 60 days. I replied to the email, not anticipating a response, and was pleasantly surprised to find they contacted the IT dept and fixed the issue holding up our applications. I called StepUp this morning to confirm everything, and we received an award ID and filled out the PEP survey/application. It seems about 3/4 of the calls to StepUp will get you someone who's very helpful and polite. If you don't get a good answer on one call, try calling again.

We decided to cut our losses from the money we gave the school for their books and first two months of tuition and go straight for the PEP scholarships. Any idea if we'll be able to reimburse those costs with the PEP funds? I'm thinking not. Praying we're able to get a PEP award soon :)

I'm glad you were able to get someone helpful and get progress made on your application! If you're awarded PEP for the full year, then my understanding is that any eligible purchases after July 1st, 2023 (when the PEP statute went into effect) would be reimbursable. If those books and tuition were paid to a private school while you were a registered student, though, then they would probably not be considered eligible purchases. If you're planning to continue using the books, you might be able to get them reimbursed as curriculum... but the tuition reimbursement under PEP is only for part-time classes, so full-time enrollment tuition at a private school would not qualify. If you're unsure, you could reach out to Step Up to ask! As a side note: Those who applied after the Quarter 1 cutoff (which was August 31st) might be awarded a prorated scholarship (meaning, not including Quarter 1 funding), so for those scholarships, I believe only purchases during the time periods from Quarter 2 (or whatever quarter you were awarded) and onward would be reimbursable.

Last we heard (a few days ago), they had officially awarded 11,400 PEP awards. Nobody has funds yet (they won't drop until September) but that was the count of how many had been awarded.

I checked with Brenda... We don't have direct info on what's going on with the processing/technical end of Step Up. We've been told they're switching large batches over to PEP on a weekly basis, but I'm getting lots of reports of people who are worried they fell through the cracks somehow. There are 2 things you can do, if you think you've been skipped over even though you applied early and/or had income priority: 1) Submit a "Known Challenges" form on Step Up (http://stepupforstudents.org/getsupport). This is the form our Step Up contact told us to have parents use if they believe there's been some kind of error/glitch/oversight with their application. And 2) Contact your legislators if you believe Step Up has somehow violated the statutes in how they are processing applications. (You can view the statutes in our HB1 doc on our Downloads/Helpful Docs page.) I recently made a forum post about how to contact your legislators here. I think I'm going to do a separate FAQ about this as well.

I just wrote my representative.

Same thing happened to me. I just called today and told I'm still pending.

I'm in your boat exactly. PEP survey June 20. Feeling equally defeated.

Have you tried contacting your state representatives? Sufs is mandated by law to handle these applications and if they aren't going by first come first serve with only income level given priority then they aren't really following the law

I'm hearing this from a lot of people. I'm not sure what's happening but we're looking into it from our end (as much as we can). We don't have all the inside info on what's happening on the technical end at Step Up, but we're trying to find out what we can.

I'm just confused if it is a tech issue or they are just extremely behind on processing applicants. It doesn't appear they are doing them in order. I just wish there was more communication on SUFS part. Thank you so much.

One of the biggest issues is that there is no record in our login of when the participation request is completed on our behalf. The website has this for when we complete each child's SLP (date and time stamp), but nothing in reference to PEP request. Thus, if there is a technical issue, we have no proof of showing that we actually completed the request.

Honestly... I'm not sure. They went by income priority, first, but that doesn't explain situations like yours where children from the same family weren't approved at the same time. (And you aren't the only parent I've heard that from!) I'm just hoping it all evens out when they do the mass switchover, which is supposed to happen this week! If your child is still stuck in waiting after we get word the switchover happened, then I'd suggest reaching out to Step Up because there might be a glitch or something else going on.

I don't think income priority has anything to do with it....I make less than $20k a year and still haven't been switched to PEP.

They were required by statute to give income priority first, then based on order of application. First-come, first-served shouldn't void income priority for those who had already applied. To our knowledge, Step Up is doing their best to process everyone, and it's possible they've had some tech glitches, etc., that are creating issues. However, we can't say for sure what's going on with those since we don't have a window into the tech side of how things are being processed on Step Up's end. If you believe Step Up is violating the statutes in how they are processing applicants, you can reach out to your legislators! If enough people report this concern, the legislators may reach out to Step Up directly to ensure things are being done according to what's in the statutes. I've made a recent post in the PEP FAQs section of the forum with info on how to contact legislators.

You can reach out to Step Up through the contact/support on their site (phone number or their chat option), OR you can submit a "Known Issues" form here: https://www.stepupforstudents.org/get-support/

Funds for PEP are not supposed to drop until September 1st. Are you seeing an amount in the "funds available" on the dashboard, like this:

Or are you talking about the "Awarded" status for the scholarship itself, like this?

(Those have been showing Award amounts for a while, but that's not the same as funds having dropped.) Just wanting to clarify what you're seeing!

Yes, in the first one under Funds Available. Now it is gone. Yesterday it was $8,349 and change. Now it says 0, so assuming they are still figuring things out. But yes, yesterday I had money in there! Didn't screen shot it though.

It was probably a glitch as they get everything set to roll out September 1st. That would be my guess, at least. We're told the big switchover will happen tomorrow (if not before then) and LOTS of people should be getting the confirmation emails!

I just tried and was able to log in as usual. Have you tried using a different browser? I've heard reports of people having issues with Safari or other browsers, but Chrome seems to work for most people.

I only use Chrome, but will try another browser and let everyone know. Thank you!

Sometimes I have to go through the Google search to the step up page and then ema. It's annoying but it keeps happening that I'll get not found when I go straight through ema

That might be an FHSAA question. Step Up is reimbursing any eligible purchases after July 1st (when PEP went into effect), but I don't know how FHSAA is planning to handle parents who switch to PEP from the county while already/currently participating in a sport.

You're welcome!