Colorado school tip line law

What does the Colorado law require?

Colorado law creates the Safe2Tell program within the Department of Law. The attorney general administers the Safe2Tell Act. The program must set up and keep anonymous ways to report unsafe, dangerous, violent or criminal activities in schools, or threats of them. The school code describes Safe2Tell's main purpose as giving students and the community a way to pass on information anonymously. The official program page says Safe2Tell is a 24/7 anonymous reporting system run by the Colorado Attorney General's Office. The program page says reports can be sent by text: S2TCO to 738477.

What must schools do?

Every public school student ID card must carry the Safe2Tell phone number, website and text number. The safe-school-plan statute names Safe2Tell as one of a district's "community partners." Each board of education's school response framework must require districts, to the extent possible, to sign agreements (memoranda of understanding) with community partners, including Safe2Tell, setting out who does what when responding to incidents.

How are tips routed and followed up?

The program must promptly forward tips to the right law enforcement or public safety agency, or to school officials. It does not have to forward information when the call was transferred to the statewide behavioral crisis response system. The program must follow up with law enforcement and schools to learn the outcome of each report. The program page says Safe2Tell works with the Colorado Information Analysis Center in the Department of Public Safety to answer and send out reports. As program practice, not statute, the program page sets 30 minutes for 911 dispatch centers to acknowledge a report and one business day for school staff to view it. Also as program practice, local teams get 30 days to report the response or outcome and close a report.

What training and materials does the state provide?

The program must train law enforcement dispatch centers, school districts and individual schools on responding to Safe2Tell tips. It must hold training every year in every region of the state, with materials free to attendees. Beginning on or before August 1, 2024, the department must hold a yearly training meeting for school resource officers and school officials on responding to Safe2Tell reports. The program must provide Safe2Tell awareness and educational materials to all elementary and secondary schools in Colorado. It must also provide all elementary and secondary schools with materials aimed at preventing misuse of the program.

Are reporters anonymous?

The program must keep reporters' identities unknown to everyone, including law enforcement and program staff. Materials created or obtained by the program are confidential. Under the Colorado Open Records Act (the state's public-records law), records custodians must deny inspection of Safe2Tell program materials. Knowingly disclosing confidential Safe2Tell materials is a class 1 misdemeanor. The attorney general may disclose Safe2Tell materials to law enforcement to prevent imminent physical harm or serious bodily injury.

What happens with false reports?

A court may order a reporter's identity produced if there is probable cause they knowingly used Safe2Tell to falsely report an emergency. Before filing charges based on records produced that way, a district attorney must first consider a referral to restorative justice (a process that repairs harm instead of punishing it). Under general criminal law, a knowingly false report of an imminent threat involving a deadly weapon is the crime of false reporting of an emergency. It becomes a class 1 misdemeanor under certain conditions, such as causing an evacuation or shelter-in-place.

Does the state report tip data?

The program must prepare a written data report by December 1 every year, starting December 1, 2018. The report goes to the House and Senate education and judiciary committees by January 1 of the following year. It must cover how well the Safe2Tell dispatch center in the Department of Public Safety is working.

How is Safe2Tell funded?

State law creates a Safe2Tell cash fund, subject to annual appropriation (yearly approval by the legislature).

Have there been recent bills?

SB25-064 would have required Safe2Tell to send schools a "handle with care" notice after a student's adverse childhood experience. It did not become law; its last action, on May 13, 2025, was a lay-over in House Appropriations. HB26-1264 would have required public schools to give staff, students and parents information about Safe2Tell. It did not become law; the House Education Committee postponed it indefinitely on April 23, 2026.