The Student Teachers

Rachel Burton teaches a girls' sex education class at Valley High School and challenges the standard curriculum by including contraception, consent, and sexual health discussions. She organizes after-school sessions and has students create an educational film addressing pornography and gender dynamics. Her progressive methods face opposition from administrators and parents, and she is dismissed from her position.

Tracy Davis is an art teacher who proposes adding figure study through photography and works off-campus with student Mickey in his family’s darkroom. She focuses on lighting, composition, and artistic expression, despite Principal Peters’ directive to keep lessons conventional. Her relationship with boyfriend Alex Boslick becomes strained due to the subject matter and her involvement with the student.

Jody Hawkins mentors Carnell Smith in the Second Chance program and leads efforts to keep the program funded. To secure resources, she infiltrates the drug operation of Dinwiddie by posing as a buyer, creating internal conflict within the organization while preserving the school’s mission.

Carnell Smith is a former dropout who benefits from the Second Chance program, turning to the educators for support and opportunities. He represents the at-risk student population targeted by the new program and becomes a focal point of Hawkins’s efforts to expand education beyond the traditional classroom.

Alex Boslick is Tracy Davis’s boyfriend who objects to the subjects and her close involvement with a student, creating personal tension amid professional ambitions.

Dinwiddie is the drug operation boss whose illegal activities form the dangerous backdrop against which the school’s reformers must operate; he becomes the target of Jody Hawkins’s infiltration.

Principal Peters personifies the old guard, opposing progressive methods and pressuring teachers to maintain conventional lesson plans.