It's a Thursday night in December 2019.

We're in a nondescript government building on Sutton Boulevard in Queens, New York,

in a meeting room with a drop ceiling and fluorescent lights.

And the room is packed. Every chair is filled, and parents are standing in the back and on the sides. There are

many more parents crowded in the hallway just outside the door. Security won't let them in.

They say it's a fire hazard.

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. At this point, we'll call this meeting order. Do our roll call,

can you take the attendance, please?

This is a meeting of the Community Education Council for School District 28.

Their meetings are usually small and sleepy.

Not this one.

Vijay Ramjadden, president of the council, tries to start things off on a positive note. I see some familiar faces and some new faces,

and some media faces, which is amazing.

You're on camera.

But pretty quickly, he starts to lose the room.

The way I've been running the meetings here for the past,

X month and months.

Why are we considering canceling this meeting?

I mean, why are we in such a big purge?

I know.

We're here 100 percent. I know. I'm hearing. You're going to So if we're going to talk and I'm going to talk, if you want to speak.

Sign a speaker sheet.

...