 Sylvia Barrett is a rookie teacher at New York s inner-city Calvin Coolidge High: her lit classes are overcrowded, a window is broken, there s no chalk, books arrive late. The administration is concerned mainly with forms and rules (there s an up and and a down staircase); bells ring at the wrong time. Nevertheless, she tries. How she handles the chaos and her despair in her first semester makes up the film: a promising student drops out, another sleeps through class, a girl with a crush on a male teacher gets suicidal, and a bright but troublesome student misunderstands Sylvia s reaching out. A discussion of Dickens, parents  night, and a mock trial highlight the term. Can she make it?