Malik was standing beside them, trying not to laugh.
A fifteen-year-old Korean American girl named Lena Kim stepped forward.
"Ms. Nia?"
Nia smiled cautiously.
"Yes?"
Lena held up her phone.
"You're famous."
The other students laughed.
Nia groaned.
"Please don't start."
But Lena was serious.
She was a talented pianist who struggled with performance anxiety, particularly when audiences included people she didn't know.
She often worried that her Korean accent sounded awkward when she spoke English and that her English pronunciation sounded too American when she spoke Korean.
Nia had spent months encouraging her to stop treating bilingual identity as a test she could fail.
Now Lena looked at the video.
Then toward her teacher.
"That man was making fun of you."
Nia considered the words.
"Yes."
Lena frowned.
"But you still sang."
Nia nodded.
The girl hesitated.
"How?"
Nia pulled a chair closer.
For several seconds, she thought about the question.
Then answered.
"Because I stopped singing for him."
Lena looked confused.
Nia smiled.
"I remembered someone who needed the song for a different reason."
The girl's expression softened.
For a moment, she looked toward the piano.
Then whispered.
"I wish I could do that."
Nia reached for her hand.
"You can learn."
Lena shook her head.
"I freeze when people look at me."
Nia nodded.
"So did I."
The student stared.
"You?"
Nia laughed.
"Absolutely."
Then she explained that courage didn't always mean feeling comfortable.
Sometimes it meant choosing a reason to continue that mattered more than the fear of being watched.
Lena considered that.
Then looked toward the piano again.
For the first time in months, she asked whether she could perform at the next community gathering.
The independent assessment of East River Music House arrived two weeks later.
Elaine Porter arranged for a structural engineer, an accessibility consultant, and an independent construction estimator to examine whether the building could be renovated while preserving essential operations.
The findings were more complicated than either side expected.
The redbrick structure required significant repairs.
Parts of the roof needed replacement.
The heating and ventilation systems were outdated.
And several interior routes needed improvement to meet the needs of people with different mobility requirements.
But the building wasn't beyond saving.
A phased renovation was technically feasible.
The work would cost more than a simple cosmetic refurbishment and require temporary adjustments to some programs, but it didn't necessarily demand the complete closure Holloway's original plan assumed.
The assessment also identified a different development sequence.