 Charlie Moore is struggling New York actor-director, who while waiting for his big break, works as a substitute teacher. His current assignment is to "watch over" a class of student prodigies. When he sees them, he sees that the principal has more or less shut them out from the rest of the world, so he tries to show them that there s more to life than just studying and winning academic competitions. The principal doesn t exactly think that he is a positive influence on the students but when one of the students  parents, who is also on the school board, sees how he got his son to get out off his shell that he "asked" the principal to make the permanent teacher. So every week he helps the students with their personal problems, in addition to their academic ones.