First, we peek in on a meeting of the teacher "discipline committee", where the ROTC teacher proposes a dress code for teachers.

As the Academic Decathlon nears, tension on the team hits a breaking point and Boris attacks (verbally) all of his teammates. ELIZABETH practices an interview with the judges during which she is encouraged to fudge the facts to make herself look good. "You want me to lie?"

KENDRA is an excellent student, and tutors others. She delivers a paper in class condemning the Special Ed program for making wrong assumptions about students' abilities.

JACQUELINE is struggling hard in school and failing several classes. The school psychologist and a counselor help her find ways to overcome her problems in class. She is in Special Ed because of her "ADD" diagnosis, and she gets extra time to get her work done-but still it's a struggle.

DERARD is waiting for scholarship offers. His coach is convinced he can get one, but he worries as the deadline nears and none come.

JET cheers at a basketball game. He loves it but has never been in so much pain in his life.

KARLA faces the anniversary of her abortion. She's in much emotional pain, but Dean Bogue and the Impact group help her through it. She knows she did the right thing. She wasn't ready to take care of a baby, and needed to finish school.

JEN, who struggles in school, takes a class to prepare for the SAT, but doesn't get much from it. She's terrified of taking the test, but later she thinks she did pretty well.

Elizabeth decides to stick with her speech, but with a twist. She reveals that the real purpose of it is to struggle through her own experience of abuse at the hands of her mother. She delivers a moving, complex speech and discusses it on her diarycam. She wants people to understand everything, not make easy conclusions. "I love my mama," she explains.