In this insightful episode of Restoring Education in America, Priscilla Rahn sits down with Teddy Collins, an influential voice in the realm of education and security. As a Colorado business owner and potential state legislator, Collins shares his journey from activism at the Capitol to running for public office. His dedication to school safety, sparked by personal experiences and a desire for common sense governance, underscores a compelling dialogue around the role of armed security in schools and educational reforms.
Welcome to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. She’s a master educator and author leading the conversation to restore the American mind through wisdom, virtue, and truth.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to Restoring Education in America. I’m your host, Priscilla Rahn. Thank you so much for joining the conversation today. I cannot stop talking about Excalibur Classical Academy. They’re opening this fall in the Centennial area. It’s a private classical school. Their mission and vision is restoring America’s heritage by developing servant leaders who are keepers and defenders of the principles of freedom for which our founding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. So if you have a young child that’s starting kindergarten through third grade this fall, please go to their website, ExcaliburClassicalAcademy.org, and you can sign up for an open house or schedule a private tour. And also, if you’re a teacher looking for a great place to teach, we’re looking to hire amazing classically-minded teachers. So again, classical school opening in Centennial this fall, Excalibur Classical Academy. Well, you know, in the state of Colorado, we’re battling school choice efforts. We have parents that are pulling their kids out of public school. And we have legislators who are trying to pass laws that don’t really support education choice. But we have someone who is running for the state legislature who is going to talk to us all about his vision for education in the state of Colorado. Welcome to the stage, Teddy Collins. Hi, Teddy.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thanks for having me on.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s great to have you here. Hey, before we get started into the conversation, I’m gonna share a little bit of your bio with our listeners. Teddy Collins is a Colorado business owner, entrepreneur and civic leader committed to individual liberty, responsible governance and restoring common sense in Colorado. As the founder of one of the state’s largest family owned firearms businesses, he’s created jobs, supported local economies and champion constitutional rights and personal freedom. Teddy has served in leadership roles with the Colorado Federal Firearms License Association and the Colorado State Shooting Association, advocating for responsible firearm ownership, public safety, and the Second Amendment. Teddy hosts a podcast on the Second Amendment, but his most important role is husband and dad of two daughters with a third one on the way. This responsibility drives his focus on parental rights community safety, and protecting the next generation. So Mr. Businessman, dad, husband, you decided that you were going to throw your hat in the ring and run for the state legislature. Take us back. How did you come to that decision?
SPEAKER 02 :
So two big things occurred. So I’ve been an activist up at the Capitol for about the last five years. If you’ve ever been to a protest for the Against the anti-2A laws that the legislature has been trying to pass in the last five years, you’ve probably seen me there. I probably organized it or I probably organized the actual testimony that has occurred at the Capitol, whether it be for that or for parental rights bills. So one of the big things that really got me thinking about getting into politics was actually the death of Charlie Kirk. When Charlie died, I was actually set to see him at Charis Bible College up in Woodland Park, and it turned into a memorial service. And, you know, I’ve been a fan of his for a while. I’d followed him for a long time, but his death really hit me. And, you know, in a situation like that, I’m sure everybody remembers that day. They remember what happened. People tend to have one of three responses, really. You have your two big ones, your fight or flight, and then you have your freeze. Well, I’m a fighter. Always have been. I’ve been fighting up at the Capitol for years, and it made me start thinking, what can I do to have a bigger voice to be able to make, in effect, more change here in Colorado? and to bring Colorado back to, well, we’ll say common sense, civility. So I decided to start thinking about running for politics. And I was looking around and I have a lot of friends that are in politics that I’ve worked with over the years to either amend bills, kill bills, or pass bills. So I started talking and saying, hey guys, what do you think I should do for this? And one of my really good friends, Mark Baisley, said, I’m not running for reelection again. I’m going to run Well, at that time for governor, but eventually for federal Senate, as he is right now against Hickenlooper. And he said, you should run for my seat. I could think of nobody better that could basically fill my shoes than you. And that’s that’s saying a lot because I respect Mark a lot. You know, he has the highest Liberty score rating of any any Republican senator and the legislator in the Senate. And I do know I have some big shoes to fill, but what really solidified it for me, because it started getting me to kick the can around a little bit and think about it. Um, my daughters had a threat against their school about two weeks before I decided to file my daughters. Um, like I said, I had a threat where I had to actually pull them out of school. Classes were canceled for near a week and I had to pull them out as well, um, because of fear for their safety. And, you know, it really got me looking into the school district and how they protect our kids, what they teach our kids, things of that nature. And I found that for that entire school district, and this is a public school district and it’s in El Paso County, not Douglas County in this situation, but El Paso County does not have a single armed SRO in that school district. And my daughter goes to an elementary school with 400 students. So then I went to the school board and I said, what is your plans for this? What are you going to do to protect our children? And I asked them about Faster Colorado, which I’m sure a lot of people that watch her program are probably familiar with Faster Laura Carno’s program. And they won’t allow it because the teachers are the school board, I should say, in this situation, believe that firearms lead to an unsafe learning environment. Well, an unsafe learning environment is a madman coming into a school and doing something to commit an atrocious act of evil. We protect everything that’s near and dear in our lives with security. We go to the airport. We have to go through TSA. We have to go through metal detectors. They have armed security everywhere. but not our children, not our legacy, not the most valuable things in our lives. It doesn’t make any sense. So that really was the final straw for me to jump into this. And then I did. I decided to run for Senate. But there’s been a number of other issues, of course, that have been affecting this decision over the course of years here in Colorado. I mean, when I first moved here, I’ve been here almost a decade. I remember there was a Republican Senate and a Democrat House. And in the time I’ve been here, I’ve seen a change to near eight years of complete Democrat control. And this state used to, when I moved here, and one of the reasons I did move here was ranked one of the best in every single metric you can imagine, from affordability to quality of life to family values, especially in the Springs area. Now we’re ranked one of the worst in crime, one of the worst in affordability, one of the most expensive states to live in, in general. I can’t stand by on the sideline anymore. And, you know, activism is one thing. Doing things at the Capitol is one thing. but I feel like I can actually make a difference. And that’s why I’m doing this.
SPEAKER 03 :
So, Teddy, when we talk about school safety, that’s really important to me. I’ve been in education for 32 years, been a building leader, helping to open a new school this fall, a private school, where we have a little bit more freedom to engage our staff in training like Faster Colorado and really secure our schools. But when we think about the proper role of government, education is not in our Constitution, and there are a lot of arguments to be made, especially when you’re fighting with the teachers’ union. who says, you know, we don’t want any school to look a certain way. We only want, you know, they only care about public schools, but then all of a sudden they want to tell private and charter schools and homeschoolers like what they can and cannot do. So when you think of it from a policy standpoint, and this hits home for you when you’re looking at a public school district that doesn’t have armed security and seconds matter, right? You know, it’s not a matter of if it’s a matter of when. Right. We know this as folks who carry and train. Do you think you could make an impact or write a bill that would ensure that our kids are more safe? Or do you think that’s a proper role of government to tell a school district, local school district, you have to have armed personnel because there’s the right. You’re like, OK, what’s the proper role of government? But I want to keep kids safe. So what’s a good question around that?
SPEAKER 02 :
So it’s a good question. I’m definitely a decentralized government type of person. But what we see in this situation is we see people on these school boards, they get elected that have no idea of security. I’ll give you a little background on me. And not only have I been a business owner, a land man, a realtor, an investor, everything that you can imagine, I made my success by the age of 30. But I was also a firearms instructor for many years, and I actually did train school marshals in the state of Texas through the school marshal program, which is a program Texas instituted in order to protect their kids and protect children so something like Uvalde never happened again. Those programs have been successful, not just there, but across the country. I do think there’s a role for government in this situation because government’s collecting taxes from people across the state and rendering those taxes. How those taxes are being used is the exact job of the legislator. And I believe that every single school should have an SRO that is armed. And I also believe that every single school should have the opportunity to allow volunteer teachers and volunteer staff to go through the FASTA program or a program similar to it that’s approved by the state. or the chief law enforcement official of that county. That’s another thing. If we want to talk about local government, there’s nothing more local when it comes to security than your sheriff. That’s your highest elected local law enforcement officer. Why are we allowing a school board full of people that have no idea what they’re doing when it comes to security to decide security aspects versus the sheriff? Almost every single sheriff in the state of Colorado would institute a program if we allowed the security to be in their hands, such as Faster Colorado. or such as making sure that there are actual armed proper response on those schools to protect their legacies.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I know there are retired officers, retired military who may even be grandparents who would be willing to spend a little bit of time volunteering at their child’s school or at an event if there’s an outside event. So I know we definitely could use some sort of way to invite people who are… Texas and Florida use veterans for that as well. They allow veterans to do that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, so it’s a way to also employ veterans, and they do get a stipend for doing so. So there’s ways that we can do this affordably. And to say the state doesn’t have the money, I mean, we need to doge the state first and foremost. There’s a lot of waste going on here in Colorado. I mean, just down the street from me, about a mile and a half from my daughter’s school, they just built a $48 million overpass for wild game. I guess they think the deer are going to be able to figure out that they need to cross the freeway there. So if they can do that, I think they can afford an armed security guard or an armed resource officer at the school a mile and a half away for 400 elementary school children.
SPEAKER 03 :
So Teddy, what advice would you give to a private school that maybe has the flexibility to have armed staff in their building? But yet, you know, when you’re working with children, before you get employed, there is a background check, right? So this is a complicated issue for those of us who are gun owners, right? We have this conversation, like what’s responsible when it comes to working with children? And in your mind, what advice would you give
SPEAKER 02 :
to a school that wants to have armed staff but feels like it’s the responsible thing to do to do a background check so the background check if the school isn’t going to have trouble actually doing the background check it’s very simple have them get their concealed handgun permit for the state of colorado they get fingerprinted they go through a rigorous background check anything on that background check that would deny them from having a chp are the same things that would keep them from being able to work in a school it’s very simple and that process is already in place As far as the training is concerned faster Colorado they already do they do their own internal background checks they train these teachers for active shooter response they train them for first aid. Stop the bleed response, this is more training than most officers receive so we’re not talking about just you know. Mrs. Davis, a 75 years old, going and taking a four hour firearms course and carrying a firearm without any proper knowledge. No, they put them through the ringer on this. This is actually advanced training and it’s good training. And these are these are stakeholders. These are the people they want to see these children protected. I guarantee you, if you give them the opportunity to do this, many of them will step forward. And I’ve made a commitment to raise money for this organization to make sure we sponsor it so it doesn’t cost them anything. Heck, my store, Spartan Defense, I’ve already said I will give any teacher that goes to the Faster program anything they want at my dealer cost so that there’s no markup on it, so that they can get things at a more affordable price range for them.
SPEAKER 03 :
Teddy, that is huge. OK, say that again and say the name of your location so people know where to go.
SPEAKER 02 :
So I own Spartan Defense Armory and Training in Colorado Springs. That’s going to be on the east side of Colorado Springs on Powers and Barnes, and we’re one of the largest family-owned and operated gun stores in the state. It’s one of my business enterprises. It’s definitely my pet project, my favorite one, because I actually do have a real effect in the community here, as well as up at the Capitol. There’s a reason I’ve received so many endorsements from legislators, even though I’ve never run for politics before. It’s because I’ve made those connections over the years, and they know what I’m capable They know that I’m actually capable of doing what I’m saying and not just talking.
SPEAKER 03 :
So, Teddy, so you’re an expert in firearms and security and safety. If you do go down to the Capitol, you have to know a little bit about everything. I mean, there’s just so much to know.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s where my business background comes in.
SPEAKER 03 :
OK, well, let’s talk about some packet. Like, are there certain committees you would hope that you could serve on?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, the State Veteran Affairs Judicial Committee is definitely one that’s more public safety related, and it’s more veteran related as far as the issues are concerned. It’s kind of the most strenuous committee. They tend to have the longest amount of debates, which I am very good at, and I don’t mind talking. My wife says I love to hear the sound of my own voice. She jokes with me on that. No, I’m just kidding. But at the same time, I know I actually I actually look forward to a very strenuous process and a very combative process because there are some senators on the left on there that I think would be very upset to see me. And I look forward to ruining their day.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, as a teacher, again, I’ve been in education. I teach in Denver public schools and I am a former union leader. So I fired the union a couple of years ago, walked away, got red pilled and realized that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Was it CEA or which union?
SPEAKER 03 :
So Denver, Denver classroom teachers, but we’re a member of CEA and NEA. Right. remind me i need to tell you something about cea here a second but keep going sorry yeah well i’m just really upset about how fiercely they keep fighting really good bills i mean from anything from a 400 tax refund for teachers because we we spend a lot of our own money in the classroom and they shoot it down because i don’t i don’t even know why maybe because they don’t want a republican are they are they supposed to aren’t they supposed to represent the teachers They’re supposed to, which is why I tell every teacher to give yourself a raise. Stop paying to the union. And if you’re worried because you want liability insurance, which is how they get you, Teddy, they scare you into saying you need to join the union because your principal could fire you. You could lose your job. Teacher Freedom Alliance will give you free $2 million liability insurance just for signing up. So we don’t need to be a part of that. But so, Teddy, I’d like to know, like, if you go down to the Capitol, would you fight for teachers that think like me and have the same values as myself who want to make sure a parents are supported in their school choice journey, but also that teachers will be protected from having to comply with really bad state laws?
SPEAKER 02 :
Of course I will. And I’ll tell you right now, as long as the teachers are also on the same thought process of being able to protect children, making sure the children’s interests come first. I will definitely fight for those teachers 100%. And I also just want to say one of the things I also would fight for and that I think we need to do as a state is allow the tax dollars to follow the student, whether that be a charter school, whether that be a home school, the tax dollars should follow the students. I mean, we do have school choice in this state, which is great because not a lot of states have that. But I think we need to go further than that. And I think we can go further than that. We’ve seen the success with school choice. Let’s make sure that we’re funding charter schools. Let’s make sure that we’re funding home school. Because homeschool is a great alternative. It really is. And I support it hugely, especially with the indoctrination we’re seeing from some of these liberal schools out there. And, you know, you mentioned you mentioned CEA. And I just wanted to bring this up because last week I went and testified in favor of a bill presented by my predecessor, Mark Baisley, Senator Baisley. It was zero five five. And that bill would have created a registry of teachers that had committed gross misconduct or sexual offenses against students. And the reason that this is important, and a lot of people don’t understand this, is because unless the teacher is actually arrested, prosecuted, it doesn’t show up on their record if they’re just terminated. And a lot of these schools will just sweep it under the rug by terminating the teacher. The problem is, and we actually have seen this in one of my counties that I’m hoping to represent here, Jefferson County, was that a teacher actually went between three different schools, assaulted multiple students in a sexual way, and it was never reported because they just kept getting fired. And the record was not reported that they had been fired. so every single person that testified that day including myself and i just want to point out guys again i don’t just talk about doing things i do it i’m the only candidate in this race that has been to the capitol at all this session to testify in favor or against anything in fact i’m approaching 21 testimonies this session alone every year i i i’ll do that significantly but point being is the only person out of everyone there that testified against this bill was cea’s lobbyist They came up and they stated that this would affect their hiring process because it would basically persuade or dissuade teachers from applying for the job. And there’s a lack of teachers in the state. That was their reason. So along party line votes, Tom Sullivan and his crew of Democrats voted no on this bill. One of them even went as far as to say that this is an unfunded mandate and they could not support it, even though they passed about 15 unfunded mandates this session long. And it could have been fixed in seconds through amendment process. Insanity. It’s disgusting.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, it’s 100%. I mean, when you’re talking about an industry, the union, that doesn’t protect kids, that they put adults who are predatory ahead of the safety of minor children. Who are they trying to protect? Well, I mean, this is their source. Schools are their source. Okay. Where are these people going to get to children? Well, at a public school, that’s how they get to minor children. Teddy, I have seen people don’t understand. Like we talk about these things, but when you’re in the building and you see what your colleagues are doing and saying to minor children, We would, I mean, I, you would have never heard me say this a couple of years ago that we need to like shut down public schools and parents take your kids out of public schools. There is no safety. There’s no, there’s no way. A parent can protect their child if their child is in a public school.
SPEAKER 02 :
I agree. I’m trying to fight alternatives. Unfortunately, I live in rural Colorado and there’s not a lot of alternatives out here other than homeschooling. And my wife and I both, you know, run a business and it’s, it’s very, it’s very difficult for us. We’re looking for alternatives. We’re looking for a good charter school like Excalibur or something of that nature to send our child to.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, if you win and you have to drive up I-25 every day, you drop the kids off at Excalibur. OK, so for every problem, there’s a solution, Teddy.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am, there is.
SPEAKER 03 :
So look, talking about this. So President Trump passed this big, beautiful bill. And part of that is the $1,700 tax credit. So that means that if you donate $1,700 to an SGO, for example, like a scholarships, then you’d get a $1,700 tax credit. So it’s a wash. It’s a win-win. You get to donate and then that money goes to help a child. The money follows the child. Okay. But our friends down at the state capitol, Representative Goldstein and Senators Kipp and Marchman, all three of who’ve been endorsed by the teachers union, have written a bill that would prevent private schools like Excalibur from accessing a scholarship money, which is not the state’s money. That’s a federal program. Okay. First of all, that’s a federal tax savings.
SPEAKER 01 :
Why?
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. I don’t even know if this is legal, but they have a bill. It’s bill 26 dash 1292. And check this out. This is the other game they play that I know that you play, but I’m going to read this summary here. how they word the summary. It says, if the state voluntarily elects to participate in a federal program that provides a tax credit for qualified contribution to a scholarship-granting organization, the bill requires the state to include all eligible scholarship-granting organizations on its list, identifying scholarship-granting organizations to the federal government. That part I don’t have a problem with, having a list. Who are the grantee organizations? But wait. Here’s where they play games. If a school enrolls a student whose education related expenses are paid in whole or in part by a scholarship granting organization, the bill requires the school to comply with non-discrimination requirements and laws concerning students with disabilities. Now, Teddy, who wants to, there’s children with disabilities. We have to pass this law, but they don’t really talk about what those non-discrimination requirements are. We know what they are. You know, boy. Yeah, that. But but boys playing in girls sports or kids going into, you know, boys going into girls bathrooms and locker rooms. OK, so it says if the school that is subject to these requirements violates a requirement. The school is subject to an injunction and may have its eligibility to receive money for a student whose education-related expenses are paid by a scholarship-granting organization suspended. So they’re literally coming after any school that doesn’t agree with their laws because we feel as individuals in the United States of America who practice religious freedom that don’t want that’s why we’re not going sending our kids to public school but they want to come in and and interrupt that and so i mean i already know if you were down at the capitol this is a non-starter for you but what’s your message to parents and educators who are like-minded who might hear watch this you know on an encore hear it on the radio what would you recommend that they do about this bill
SPEAKER 02 :
They need to look into it more because the wording we see this with the Democrats a lot. You know, they did this with Prop KK, LL, MM in the last few elections and the last few ballot propositions. They worded in a way where it pulls on your heartstrings. It makes you think that it’s doing something good. But in reality, it’s not. In reality, it’s doing something bad or it’s taking from one person to give to another person. It’s basically a form of socialism. And we see this a lot. It really is. That’s what it’s doing is it’s taking from one to give to the other. And you’re right. I mean, there shouldn’t be restrictions like this. We know what this is going to lead to. It’s going to, you’re right, boys and girls sports. It’s going to lead to DEI type studies and things of that nature. And that’s what they want. It’s partisan. And I would also say, look at the voting makeup of a bill. If the bill didn’t, if the bill passed upon a party line, you can assure that it’s bad for about 50% of the state. know at the end of the day it should we should have more bipartisan agreements you know i actually actually had a debate with the democrat the other day that walked through a conservative event we were doing the cssa shooting event at the centennial gun club and this person was walking through and they were looking at the different pamphlets for the different candidates at the different tables and uh you could tell that they were upset so someone reached out to him uh one of the one of the gubernatorial um canvassers reached out uh talked to him and said hey, would you be willing to sign this petition? He said, no, I’m a Phil Weiser supporter. And I was like, oh, okay, we’re in a gun store. All right, let’s have a chat, buddy. So I had a calm conversation with him. I asked him, I said, sir, are you pro second amendment? And he said, well, yes, but I believe there should be limitations. And I said, do you believe that you should have to go through three days of training? And do you think that you should have to go through a licensing and fingerprint procedure just to purchase a commonly used handgun? or a firearm in the state of Colorado. And he said, well, no, I don’t. And I said, do you believe in legalizing a prostitution? And he said, well, they’re not going to do that. And I was like, it’s already passed the first reading. It’s already out of committee. It’s going into second reading. That means it’s probably going to pass. Do you understand what your party’s doing to the state? And he said, well, I don’t agree with that. And he’s like, I just, I’m just upset at these radical Republicans. And I was like, well, what’s radical to you? He’s like, well, I don’t like Trump. And I said, well, I looked at the policy that your own party’s passing here in Colorado and And at the end of the day, and then what I said to him is I said, look at the last eight years, you’ve had complete control as Democrats. Has the state gotten better or worse? And he said, well, we’re in pretty bad shape. And I was like, we’re in really bad shape. We’ve gone from one of the best states in the country to one of the worst shapes in the country. What’s changed? No bipartisanship, complete one party rule. And that’s the problem we have. So people look at these bills, look at if it’s a bipartisan bill or straight party line vote that tells you whether it deserves support at all.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Teddy Collins, I appreciate your time today. We’re out of time, but people can go to your website to learn more. Collins for Colorado dot com. I appreciate your passion and your willingness to come on the show and to support our parents and our children. To my listeners. Thank you for tuning in and catch me next time. And remember that educating the mind without the heart is no education. So seek wisdom, cultivate virtue and speak truth.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thanks for tuning in to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. Visit PriscillaRahn.com to connect or learn how you can sponsor future episodes to keep this message of faith, freedom and education on the air.
