The Second Family

• Drama

Episode overview

The sacrifices and problems of teachers in an average public high school as exemplified in an actual happening in Eastchester High School, Eastchester, N.Y., are examined in this drama. The school's most skilled teacher, Gordon Lacklin, is offered a better paying job and is torn between his loyalty to the school and his family obligations. The principal, Douglas MacDonald, must decide whether to dismiss a teacher, Alice Polcheck, who is dedicated to teaching but who cannot keep order in her classroom. In accordance with his guiding belief that the students come first, he lets her go, but she tells Lacklin that she regards him as a great teacher. After realizing that the students need good teachers, he decides that he is meant to be teacher and stays.