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?

Starring:

Bud Cort, Dan Morgan, Eileen Heckart, Elena Karam, Esther Rolle, Florence Stanley, Frances Sternhagen, Jean Stapleton, Jeff Howard, Jeffrey Walker, John Callahan, John Gerstad, Linda Gillen, Loretta Leversee, Martha Greenhouse, Patrick Bedford, Robert Levine, Roy Poole, Ruth White, Sandy Dennis, Sorrell Booke, Vinnette Carroll

Genre:

Drama