Dear Steve Miller and Trent Seibert:

In response to this story, https://texasmonitor.org/austin-isd-30m-bond-new-school-brown-elementary/,

published in The Texas Monitor, we would like to give context to the decision at T.A. Brown.

When looking at Austin ISDs decision to close T.A. Brown, it is important to note that the district was in
the middle of assessing its buildings for the Facility Master Plan. We knew ahead of the assessments that
many of our older buildings, including T.A. Brown would need to be updated or rebuilt entirely and we had
been urged by the Austin Chamber to do a full evaluation of all of our facilities.

During the process, we did not expect to have to close any schools immediately. However, when we
found out from the engineering firm that the building was unsafe, we immediately closed the school.
Because the building could not be reopened until it was safe, we were certain that the school would not
be reopened the same school year. Out of due diligence, we continued to seek options on whether it was
possible to fix T.A. Brown, rather than rebuild, even though the original engineering firm advised that they
did not believe that was a vital solution. Not only would the structural repairs need to be made, but also
the school would still need to be modernized. Additionally, it would be unlikely for the district to find a
contractor to perform the work due to the complexity of the work that would need to be performed, which
would include rebuilding the floor under the crawlspace or from the roof.

The districts intent was always to modernize schools and not to approach facilities with a Bandaid
approach. The $6 million mentioned in the article was pulled out of context and is much closer to at least
$23.5 million with the full deficiencies at T.A. Brown. We believe sending T.A. Brown students to a new,
modernized school versus attempting to patch up the school at an estimated $23.5 million is by far the
best option for students.

The article was also incorrect in reporting that: Brown, like the district, has lost students in the past five
years. While the population in the district has grown 12 percent since 2013, enrollment in Austin ISD has
dropped four percent. The district today has four percent fewer teachers than in 2013 and six percent
more campus and office administrators.

While it is correct that enrollment has gone down 4 percent for the district while population has gone up
for the City of Austin, it is not true that teachers decreased while administrators increased. As
demonstrated on our PEIMS submission and publicly available on the TEA website, for the 2012-13
school year, the number of teachers was 7,372.1, in 2016-17 the number of teachers was 7,293.8, a
decrease of 1.06 percent. For the 2012-13 school year, the number of administrators was 525, in 2016-17
the number of administrators was 389.7, a decrease of 25.7 percent.