Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) will reschedule – and restart – the registration process for its summer camps, due to a technical difficulty that emerged when registration initially opened on Thursday morning.

Online sign-ups for the TCAPS Summer Explorer’s Club camps were scheduled to open at 8am sharp yesterday morning, Thursday, February 8. But according to a TCAPS Facebook post published at 9:47am on Thursday, the district “unexpectedly encountered a system error” while families were trying to register for the Summer Explorer’s Club. Because of the technical issue, TCAPS said, “many families were unable to complete the registration process.”

“We have shut down registration for the day and will communicate with families a new date to register as soon as all errors have been resolved,” the post continued.

Notably, the rescheduled registration date will also mark a total reset in the sign-up process for this year’s summer camps. “We are aware that several families were able to successfully submit their registration form in the early minutes of the form opening,” TCAPS noted. “We will be canceling all received registrations and will ask all families to resubmit when a new registration date is determined.”

The technical snafu comes during a moment when demand for local summer camp slots seems to far outstrip supply. Earlier this week, many parents camped out overnight at the YMCA West location on Silver Lake Road to sign up for the Y’s summer camps, which require in-person registration. Those camp slots sold out quickly, and the YMCA shared on Tuesday that it is “now on a waitlist for summer camp.”