Rafe Khatchadorian, who enjoys a passion for art and has an incredible imagination, transfers mid-semester to Hills Village Middle School after being expelled from the only two other schools in the entire district that would accept him. On his first day, he meets the strict and exceedingly vain Principal Ken Dwight and his obsequious Vice-principal, Ida Stricker. Dwight forces students to comply with an extensive list of rules that are mostly senseless while Stricker follows along with his antics. Later that day, an assembly focused on the Base Line Assessment of Academic Readiness (B.L.A.A.R.) standardized test, led by Dwight, is interrupted when another student grabs Rafe's sketchbook in which he had drawn the principal as a zombie repeating "B.L.A.A.R." over and over. Stricker responds by snatching the sketchbook, and handing it over to Dwight, which he had to end the assembly. Later in the Dwight's office, he destroys the sketchbook in a bucket of acid, much to the devastation of Rafe.
