Up the Down Staircase

Sylvia Barrett is a rookie teacher at New York's inner-city Calvin Coolidge High: her lit classes are overcrowded, a window is broken, there's no chalk, books arrive late. The administration is concerned mainly with forms and rules (there's an up and and a down staircase); bells ring at the wrong time. Nevertheless, she tries. How she handles the chaos and her despair in her first semester makes up the film: a promising student drops out, another sleeps through class, a girl with a crush on a male teacher gets suicidal, and a bright but troublesome student misunderstands Sylvia's reaching out. A discussion of Dickens, parents' night, and a mock trial highlight the term. Can she make it?

Written by allbestmovies

Cast

Sandy Dennis

Patrick Bedford

Eileen Heckart

Ruth White

Jean Stapleton

Sorrell Booke

Roy Poole

Florence Stanley

Vinnette Carroll

Janice Mars

Loretta Leversee

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