Mia is usually a perfect student, but when she tries to cheat on her calculus test, she gets caught up in a conspiracy to take down the school system.
Dusty Rhodes is new at Jefferson High, and she sticks out like a... well, a cowgirl. Dusty is a real cowgirl from Texas. Her parents are in the U.S. Army: her mother a helicopter pilot and her father a Special Forces Army Ranger. At first, Dusty is an outcast, but eventually she makes friends with a group that includes Savanah, a girl whose father was killed while fighting in Iraq three years earlier. Even though Savanah is kind of Goth and Dusty is all cowgirl they have a special connection and they bond. Dusty gets the school to agree to an Equestrian Drill Team and she enlists her new city slicker friends to join the team. As Dusty and the team practice, Dusty deals with the fears that come with her mother fighting in Afghanistan.
Chyna Parks, an 11 year old musical prodigy, gets into a gifted program called Advanced Natural Talents at the local high school. Along with her fellow elementary school-aged 'ANTs', she must navigate the halls of a new school of older kids who are not particularly fond of grade-skipping newbies.