In Brooklyn, New York, in 1965, Michael Dunn enrolls as a new student at St. Basil’s Catholic boys’ school. Michael befriends a classmate named Caesar, and witnesses the abuse doled out by one of his teachers, Brother Constance. Michael’s grandmother, who raises him and his sister, Boo, expects Michael to become a priest someday. On the way to school, a classmate named Rooney bullies him. When Michael does not react, a local girl named Danni comes to his defense. Meanwhile, Brother Timothy, a new teacher, reports the abusive actions of Brother Constance to headmaster, Brother Thadeus. However, Thadeus takes no action, and warns that Timothy should support his faculty members. Later, Rooney invites Michael into his group of friends, and takes him to their after school hangout, the soda fountain where Danni works for her shop owner father. While there, Rooney asks Danni to a school dance, but she rejects him. When priests raid the soda fountain hoping to catch the boys smoking and carousing, the ruckus destroys the shop. Michael helps Danni clean up the mess, and she recognizes that he is not like the other rowdy boys. Danni confides in him that she dropped out of school to help her father. Sometime later, a school dance is held with the local Catholic girls’ school, but Michael is uninterested, and leaves to visit Danni. When no one answers his knock, he enters the opened door of her home behind the shop, and sees her invalid father. Danni, embarrassed and protective of her father’s condition, yells at Michael to leave, but chases after Michael and apologizes, explaining that her father has suffered from severe depression since his lover committed suicide. Michael invites Danni to his home for dinner, where his grandmother announces that Michael is going to be a priest. Later, Danni takes Michael to Coney Island during the off-season, where they dance on the boardwalk, and share their first kiss. In time, Danni’s truancy is reported to the authorities, and she is taken into child custody, after she and Michael say a tearful goodbye. Meanwhile, Brother Constance continues his abusive punishment of the boys after they perform several pranks. When the boys remove the head from a statue on campus, Brother Constance whips them one at a time, but Michael fights back, and is chased into an assembly where his beating continues in front of the school’s faculty and students. Michael punches Brother Constance in the face, to the applause of his peers. Brother Constance demands the boys be expelled, but Brother Timothy argues that they acted in self-defense. As headmaster Thadeus contemplates their punishment, Michael accepts all the blame. To the boys’ surprise, Thadeus holds Brother Constance responsible. However, he assigns the boys a two-week suspension. Afterward, Thadeus has Brother Constance transferred to another school, and offers the vacant position to Brother Timothy. Elsewhere, the boys worry how the suspension will affect their academic futures, but celebrate their break from school.