"Vocational Education" is the seventh of the 11th season of Happy Days.
The episode centers around Roger and Fonzie getting hired to head the administrative team at a vocational school notorious for poor academic achievement, rampant juvenile delinquency and teachers who either are apathetic or are petrified of the students.
Synopsis[]
Roger gets his first administrative job, as principal of George S. Patton Vocational School, while Fonzie is named the dean of students. The school is known for rampant juvenile delinquency, gangs of said students overrunning the authority of the teachers, teachers who are either apathetic or outright scared of the students ... and much more.
This is underscored when Roger arrives at school on his first day, where one of the teachers has been locked in a locker, her hands bound in rope. She reveals that she had been robbed and the student had stolen her credit cards. One of the other teachers, Freddie Bascome, head of the industrial technology department, helps free the teacher but then happily and contently notes the school is a lousy one ... until Roger introduces himself as the principal, at which point Bascome changes his tone and says he has his full support, before trying to kiss up to him by inviting him to dinner. (Roger declines.)
Bascome, who openly insults his students, introduces Roger to his class, where Roger foils one of the student's (two!) attempts to break his hand using a sledgehammer. Later, Roger and Fonzie deal with a disruptive student, Roach. Instead of kicking him out of school, Roger – having seen Roach's file and noting he actually has scored well on recent standardized tests – tries a new approach: Offering him a chance to enroll in an internship program. Fonzie helps persuade him by revealing his past and then telling him if he continues his path of misbehavior he'll be in for a life of poverty and much worse. Roach gets the hint and he is sent back to class.
Bascome tries confronting Roger, surprised that Roach was allowed to remain in school. Roger blows his stack, telling him point blank that it is his job to educate and care for his students and maintain order, and that if he is incapable of those things, he doesn't deserve to be a teacher. Bascome tries one last time to save face and kiss up to Roger, but Roger interrupts him and kicks him out, sending the mirror image of Eddie Haskell running for his life.