It's the first day back at Benjamin Harrison, the first day there period for smart alec transfer student Snyder. Joe tries to break up a fight between two black students -- one of whom has a gun -- and winds up shot. Mary Caitlin, who got splattered with Joe's blood, feels guilty because she was too afraid to ride in the ambulance with everybody else, but Matthew comforts her by saying Joe's alright. Gus blows up at Mrs. Biederman, and accuses her of being a racist after she bitches about the shooter, Bobby Devlin. Students and faculty alike discuss how Bobby threw his scholarship to Princeton away. One of Sara's students convinces her to have her class write papers about how the shooting affected them personally. Mary Caitlin confesses to Matthew that she wants him. Jack gets cranky when the school board assigns Mrs. Molina, rather than him, to run things while Joe is recovering. Even though he never taught Bobby, Gus visits him in juvenile detention. Bobby confesses that he didn't me

Most of the faculty decide to strike, leaving Joe scrambling for substitutes when he refuses to shut the school down, while Sara's and Harry's relationship is put to the test when they wind up on opposite sides of the picket line. Meanwhile, Harry and Jack face additional stress when Harry's ex-wife, Chris, sues him for custody of Max and Nicole, and Jack has a fender bender with Mary Caitlin, who doesn't have insurance.

An angry Joe holds a parent/teacher meeting, because 30% of the students are terminal truants. Unfortunately, most of the parents take after their kids. Matthew assumes he's lost Roz when he sees her skipping school. With Harry's case not going well, Sara offers up the services of her attorney ex-boyfriend, Jeffrey, whom Harry can't stand. Sara gets stuck with an incompetent, irascible, middle-aged student helper, Margo Bleiweiss, whose idea of teaching is to throw things at the class. A social services guy, O'Connor, fills Joe in on how one of the truants only shows up on days when he has to have a welfare form signed. Matthew tracks Roz down at her new job as a diner waitress to persuade her to come back, but Roz says her mother needs the extra cash. A student is killed after getting hit by a car during school hours, prompting Joe to look for a way to force the parents to get their spawn to stop playing hooky. O'Connor's comment gives Joe an idea -- stop signing all the truants' welf

A female student accuses a male professor of rape, Sara and Harry break up, Matthew mourns the loss of his Uncle Louie, and Roz is mocked by others for taking a stand against dissecting frogs.

An illiterate student carrying a bomb takes Jack hostage, and Carol gives birth.

Mary Caitlin witnesses a drug deal in the girls' bathroom and pushes Joe to punish the buyer -- unaware that the drugs were for the girls' parents, Henry the stutterer flies off the handle when a scholarship he thought he had turns out to be a fraud, Sara tries to mooch a quarter of a million dollars off her father to make good on the scholarship for Henry and others, Joe takes in Jack after his wife leaves him, and Roz looks to find a date for the spring dance.

Benjamin Harrison is under attack over a science teacher inflicting his religious beliefs into the theory of evolution, Mary Caitlin asks Matthew to see other people after he brings up the subject of children, Jack has a nervous breakdown in the wake of his wife leaving him, Sara panicks now that her father has cut her off, and a juvenile delinquent harrasses other students who don't believe in his God.

Joe discovers that homelessness is the cause of a girl's sudden behavioral change at school.

A Hasidic Jewish student wants Mary Caitlin to teach him how to paint -- despite the fact that painting is against his religion. Meanwhile, Joe learns the hospital was to blame for Carol's death.

When Harry learns that an engaged student is gay, he plans to do the courteous thing -- out him to his fiance.

Reminded of the war-torn '60s, Sara becomes outraged after learning that one of her star pupils is planning to drop out of high school to join the Marines.