Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
- In the pilot, Janine is insistent on getting a new rug for her class. She explains that one of her students, Amir, doesn't get enough sleep at home because his family is too noisy and his bed isn't as comfortable. So she lets him come to her class during lunch to take a nap.
- In "Work Family", Janine is openly criticized by her coworkers (or made fun of by Ava) after she reveals that she only ever dated her high school boyfriend Tariq. It doesn't help that Tariq isn't such a great guy that it would warrant Janine not pursuing other relationships. It gets to the point that she leaves the room to cry out in the rain. The worst part was that this all happened because wanted to form a better relationships with her coworkers by getting to know each other better. But to get to that level, she needed to reveal some of her personal life to start.
- In "Read-a-Thon," Melissa realizes one of her students struggles with reading, to the point where she's barely literate, and suspects she might have a learning disability—which is rough, but can be navigated with the proper tools and learning. However, when she tries to broach the topic with the girl's parents, the parents get very defensive and adamantly deny there's anything "wrong" with their daughter, and refuse to have her tested. Melissa tries to get them to see reason and understand that she's not saying their daughter isn't smart (she clearly is very bright), she just needs a little extra help, but they won't hear it. Melissa's obviously downcast as she knows this will only hurt the girl in the long run, and later takes her aside privately to teach her some reading techniques that can help her. In doing so, Melissa reveals she herself has a learning disability, and struggled with reading as a kid, meaning this whole thing is very close to home for her.
- In "The Fundraiser," Barbara tries to admonish Ava for teaching her students how to lie and cheat as part of the fundraising season. But Ava turns the tables on her by pointing out that many of those kids are growing up poor and need those skills to survive and handle making hard choices.Ava: The only reason you get to have morals about this is because you can afford them. You didn't grow up having to make hard choices; I did. What you call "scamming" got me by.
- In "Teacher Appreciation," Janine's sister Ayesha comes to town but it soon becomes a heartbreaking visit as the two sisters bring up their respective traumas growing up and how it strained their sisterhood. Ayesha brings up how the family gave up on her for not being able to handle the pressure at home which led to her running away to live her own life. This was a bitter subject for Janine who had to stay behind and deal with the Family Drama while begrudgingly becoming the responsible and "admirable" one of the two sisters.
- In "Teacher of the Year," Janine has a student with behavioral problems that she's tried repeatedly to address, but he's just been acting out more and more in response. She finally has a meeting with his mother to try and discuss what may be causing this and how they can fix it, and she approaches the situation with empathy and kindness... only for the mother to lash out at her for not being able to manage her son on her own, and calling her, "The worst teacher I've ever seen." Janine, who's made teaching her life's work and wants nothing more than to take good care of her students, breaks down crying after the mother leaves. Gregory tries to comfort her, but has no clue what to say, so he brings her to Barbara, who has to help calm Janine down and help her pick herself back up and keep going.Barbara: People have thrown dirt on my name and others have given flowers. But it's all a garden to me.
- In "Mom", we meet Vanetta, Janine's mother and despite the love Vanetta shows Janine, we can see their messed-up relationship dynamic. In the scene where Vanetta is introduced, Janine completely freezes hearing her footsteps down the hall before even seeing her, highlighting the trauma that Janine grew up with.
