This timeline tracks dated public records and source-capture milestones for Susan Payne in the school-resource-officer, Safe2Tell, school-safety, 2025-2026 Academy District 20, campaign, and CORA-rhetoric context. It includes only dated events supported by retained repo evidence or direct captures from this pass.
Confidence labels distinguish date quality: confirmed means directly supported by inspected source material; reported means attributed to a source but not independently verified here; approximate means a range or partial date is supported; conflicting means competing source claims remain unresolved; unresolved marks a known gap.
reported: Denver Gazette / Colorado Politics opinion-page reporting says Payne became the area's first school resource officer in the Harrison School District in 1995. The exact school, appointment date, and scope of area's first remain unresolved.reported: Westword reports a Pikes Peak-region prevention pilot associated with Payne's later Safe2Tell work. This supports a precursor-period chronology, not a formal Safe2Tell creation date.reported: The Colorado Trust report says Payne presented the local hotline / crime-prevention strategy to Colorado leaders in 1999. This supports a pre-2003 statewide-formation cue, but the source is retrospective.confirmed: The Colorado Attorney General source says Payne was instrumental in creating Safe2Tell in 2003.confirmed: Colorado Trust sources tie 2003 to grant-backed Safe2Tell development / start-up, board formation, and Payne's Program Director appointment.confirmed: Safe2Tell's official program history says Safe2Tell began operations as a nonprofit in 2004. Colorado Politics / The Gazette reporting also uses a 2004 creation frame for Payne's Safe2Tell work.confirmed: The Colorado Attorney General source says Payne served as Safe2Tell executive director from 2006 to 2018.reported: Colorado Trust says Payne became Executive Director / first Colorado Department of Public Safety-Homeland Security Special Agent for school safety in 2006; Westword reports nonprofit incorporation in 2006; the Colorado Trust grantee page says an additional grant was made in 2006.confirmed: The Colorado Trust grantee page says Governor Bill Ritter signed Safe2Tell legislation on May 3, 2007.confirmed: The 2010 legislative figure-setting source says Department of Public Safety FY 2008-09 funding made Safe2Tell's program director, originally from the Colorado Springs Police Department, a full-time state employee. The passage does not name Payne, so it is program-structure corroboration rather than standalone Payne personnel evidence.reported: A 2014 Region VIII webinar flyer says Payne served as Colorado Department of Public Safety / Homeland Security Special Agent from 2006 until 2010. Appointment, separation, and role-scope records remain unresolved.confirmed: Colorado Legislative Council / Joint Budget Committee figure-setting material says the Department of Law requested transfer of the Safe2Tell program from Department of Public Safety to Department of Law and describes overlapping nonprofit-board / state-employee authority. This is Safe2Tell governance context, not a Payne-specific personnel record by itself.approximate / reported: The 2014 Region VIII webinar flyer says Payne was then Director of Safe Schools with the Colorado Attorney General's Office. Earliest and latest direct AG-side role references remain unresolved.confirmed: Safe2Tell's official program history says Safe2Tell was incorporated into the Colorado Attorney General's Office in 2014.reported: Westword reports Payne's attributed account that an unexplained chain-of-command directive from the prior October limited her ability to continue Safe2Tell national expansion / resource work. The source does not establish motive or misconduct.reported: Colorado Politics / The Gazette and Colorado Sun reporting say Payne stepped down as Safe2Tell director in November 2018, citing a need for change.confirmed: Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced Essi Ellis as the new Safe2Tell director effective April 1, 2019, and described Ellis as succeeding Payne. The same source describes Payne as previously a Colorado Springs Police Department detective and as a nationally recognized school-safety expert.reported: Westword described Payne as a staffer with CU Boulder's Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence after Safe2Tell and reported that her new role allowed work with Safe and Sound Schools, NTAC, and others. Treat this as reporting-backed professional-role evidence, not a personnel record.confirmed from restricted source with user approval for public chronology use: D12 personnel-file review supports Director of Security contract material with a start date reflecting July 1, 2019. The same review supports .5 FTE, 230 days, and $60,000 contract terms for 2019-2020; payroll and personal identifiers should not be reproduced.reported: Colorado Politics / The Gazette reported that Payne became Cheyenne Mountain School District 12's first director of safety and security and reported her 28-year Colorado Springs police career, first school-resource-officer role, Safe2Tell creation role, and Secret Service / CU Boulder school-safety roles.reported: KRDO reported Payne's D12 safety / security director role and described her as a special adviser to NTAC and consultant with CU Boulder's Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. KRDO also quoted Payne saying Safe2Tell was brought to the state level as a Homeland Security school-safety special-agent role.confirmed: A Secret Service press release lists Payne as an additional participant in a nationwide NTAC tour about Protecting America's Schools. The official source does not identify her as an NTAC employee, adviser, consultant, author, or report contributor.confirmed from restricted source with user approval for public chronology use: D12 personnel-file review supports a superintendent instruction increasing Payne's Director of Security FTE from .5 to .75 for the remainder of the contract year.confirmed from restricted source with user approval for public chronology use: D12 personnel-file review supports a 2021-2022 Director of Security administrator contract for Payne. The reviewed source is chronology evidence, not evidence of misconduct or motive.reported: KOAA identified Payne as Cheyenne Mountain School District 12's Director of Safety and Security during Project Unite training coverage. This publicly supports a D12 role through January 2022 but does not address her later D12 exit.confirmed from restricted source with user approval for public chronology use: D12 personnel-file review supports a March 15, 2022 restructuring / non-renewal notice from Superintendent David Peak to Payne. The notice says he would not recommend renewal of Payne's one-year contract to the Board of Education and that the contract would expire June 30, 2022 by its own terms. This supports administrator-initiated non-renewal / contract-expiration chronology; it does not prove firing for cause, misconduct, retaliation, hidden motive, or pretext.confirmed from restricted source with user approval for public chronology use: D12 personnel-file review supports June 30, 2022 as the contract-expiration / last-work-date boundary reflected in the non-renewal notice and MetLife termination confirmation.confirmed for profile publication / affiliate listing: the IBS / Violence Prevention Project profile was published and lists Payne as Affiliate, Violence Prevention Project. This supports a current professional-profile cue, not an employment contract, paid consulting role, appointment date, or end date.confirmed for event listing / same event relationship evidence: a Moms for Liberty / M4LU event page lists Payne as a featured speaker / Q&A participant with Frank DeAngelis after a virtual watch party for Echoes of Columbine. The source supports a professional-visibility cue in the 2022-2025 gap; it does not prove Moms for Liberty membership, endorsement, funding, campaign coordination, employment, or control.confirmed: The TRACER slice includes an amended-over candidate contribution row from Payne and a later offset. The final-accounting treatment excludes the amended original.confirmed: D20 special-meeting minutes record the board interviewing Susan Payne, Eddie Waldrep, Katherine Czukas, and Jeremy Beckman for a vacant director seat. Derrick Wilburn nominated Payne, Nicole Konz seconded, and the four seated directors voted aye. Resolution 219-25 appointed Payne to fill the vacant director position.confirmed: Campaign and reporting sources place Payne as newly appointed to the D20 board after the May 20 appointment vote. The retained official May 20 minutes provide the appointment mechanism; certificate / oath artifacts remain outside the current source set.reported: KKTV published and updated an article on a dismissed murder case and competency-law advocacy. The article identifies Payne as Safe2Tell founder and Colorado Springs resident, quotes her criticism of current competency laws as a safety concern, and reports that she joined with the Colorado Parents Advocacy Network on a citizen petition seeking district-attorney lobbying for a special legislative session to re-examine or change competency statutes. This supports reported policy-advocacy activity, not a formal CPAN role.confirmed: The campaign site's About Susan Payne page was created according to the WordPress REST API response.confirmed: The campaign site's A Note from Susan page was created according to the WordPress REST API response.confirmed: Elect Susan Payne reported a $1,200 web-design expenditure to Flatcreek Communications.confirmed: D20 regular-meeting minutes place Payne in attendance and record that she led the Pledge of Allegiance. The minutes summarize board-comment topics, including Charlie Kirk, current-event violence, civil discourse, September 11 remembrance, Wilburn's new grandchild, and thanks to Mr. Shumaker.reported: A YouTube automatic-caption capture attributes one board-comment segment to Payne; the segment concerns recent violence, national threat-assessment work, the Air Force Academy and Utah incidents, children's exposure to violent online imagery, D20 armed security, warning signs / behavioral indicators, and healthy conversations after traumatic events. Exact wording still requires audio/video verification.confirmed for retained audio-slice evidence / reported for speaker attribution: a retained audio slice and MLX ASR support a Payne-attributed exchange during a radon / indoor-air-quality discussion. Payne asked whether radon-related requests were CORA requests, whether the requesters were constituents with children in those schools, and whether there was a pattern of multiple CORA requests from the same constituents. The discussion then moved through image / petri-dish evidence, expense, verification, disruption, transparency, child safety, and Payne's investigator / law-enforcement framing.confirmed: The same minutes include written public comments that present CORA requests as the route by which parents uncovered portable-classroom maintenance concerns and criticize district time / money spent on the CHSAA lawsuit. This is meeting-context evidence, not a Payne-authored CORA statement.confirmed: School Yard Secrets published a post titled The Weaponization of CORA, attributed in public metadata to John / John B.. The post used a CORA-as-resource-drain frame and asked readers to challenge candidates on whether they favored weaponizing CORA requests.reported: Colorado Times Recorder reporting placed Payne, Holly Tripp, and Eddie Waldrep on track to win D20 seats and described them as aligned with the current board in the D20 race context.confirmed: The bounded TRACER slice for Elect Susan Payne, committee ID 20255049217, contains 89 contribution, expenditure, and loan rows for 2025, with final-accounting totals of $14,144.00 contributions and $14,239.00 expenditures.confirmed: This pass captured the current D20 public directory, which lists Susan Payne as board Vice President.confirmed: This pass also captured the campaign site, School Yard Secrets CORA post, and bounded TRACER transaction slice into repo-local source material.2026-05-03. It supports D12 role boundaries and non-renewal / contract-expiration chronology; it does not prove firing for cause, misconduct, retaliation, hidden motive, or pretext.