When Rick Goodman, a novice assistant principal, passionately attempts to transform a failing school, he unwittingly gets sabotaged by a band of manipulative teachers who have hidden their incompetence behind the system's dysfunction for many years.

Goodman is hired at a rural school whose outlying community has been a sanctuary for criminals and rogues for over a century. Ma Barker was shot to death here and her descendants (legitimate and illegitimate) attend the school. Despite an overwhelming workload, out of control students, interference from his own teachers, bomb threats, and an attack by hired thugs, Goodman refuses to give up his quest to get the school on track. One teacher refuses to give up on his mission to stop Goodman. and shows up with a a loaded revolver after being suspended for inappropriate behavior, and he is gunning for Goodman.