Our Story
Seeing a desperate need to be proactive in the face of growing violence in our schools, FASTER Colorado began its work serving the students of Colorado when it was founded in 2016. It offered its first classes to teachers and other school professionals in 2017. For the first seven years of its work, FASTER Colorado operated as a project of the Denver free-market think tank Independence Institute. FASTER Colorado will always be grateful to Independence Institute for their support, foresight, and investment in the future safety of students throughout Colorado. With that early support from Independence Institute and other investors and sponsors, FASTER Colorado was quickly able to become a leader in safety training and grow to become a fully independent 501c3 organization in 2023. Looking to the future, FASTER Colorado aims to be the preeminent safety training organization in Colorado and do more to protect the students in our schools.
What is FASTER Colorado?
FASTER stands for Faculty / Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response. We are an organization dedicated to keeping children safe while they’re at school. FASTER supports arming teachers, staff, and administrators by offering world-class firearm and emergency response training.
When school boards and charter school boards authorize employees as security officers under Colorado Revised Statute 18-12-214 (3)(b), there is required annual training and annual re-qualification. FASTER Colorado provides that training, and in many cases, exceeds the annual training required by the school’s or the district’s insurance company. Armed school employees are not intended as a replacement for law enforcement and EMTs. Instead, they can save lives by being there —at the point of attack. Armed school security teams are the real first responders. They can save lives until law enforcement and other emergency responders arrive.
FASTER Colorado is a non-profit that raises money to deliver the necessary training to school districts, charter schools, and private schools, especially in their early years of their armed security programs.
