For My Daughter's Honor

In the fictional town of Tate Oklahoma Fourteen-year-old Amy Dustin (Nicholle Tom) has just started high school along with her best friends Kelly (Allyson Hannigan) and Kimberly (Sara Rue). She goes to the school game and notices Pete Nash, (Gary Cole) the school's biology teacher and football coach for the school team, the Wildcats. They take a sudden interest in each other, and begin sending each other notes and talking on the telephone. Although Pete has a wife and family, the two begin a secret relationship. He even follows her and her friends to the Frozen Mug, a local after school teen hangout and buys alcohol for her and her underage friends, while driving them around town, having fun. The librarian catches them all in the school library while Pete is hugging up to the girls, (Amy in particular), and calls him out on his behavior to which Pete replies that nothing happened. She also reports it to school Principal Arnet who also shrugs it off, saying Pete Nash is a popular teacher/coach and girls just like him and that nothing is really going on.

People begin to suspect Pete is in particular interested in Amy and there may be something inappropriate going on between them. It is revealed that another reason for the students' gossip is that Pete had trouble in the past concerning an affair with student Missy Ross the previous year, and student Donna Barns the year before that. He denies these allegations when Amy confronts him about the rumors. Pete Nash warns Amy to keep what’s going on between them silent or he will be in big trouble and so will she. One night she spends the night at Pete's house because Pete convinced his daughter, Cassie, to invite Amy to a sleepover after he takes the girls to a rock concert. During the middle of the night, Pete wakes Amy up and then convinces her to sleep with him, her first sexual experience. This upsets her but she still feels that she is in love with him. She tells no one, and her mom starts to worry her daughter is becoming more distant and angry and worries something may be terribly wrong in her life while her father tries to calm her down saying it’s just teenage “hormones”.

Although underage one day Amy’s dad Norm (Mac Davis) brings Amy a car as a gift from his dealership so she can practice driving around town. While taking her friends on a drive she somewhat alludes to what has been going on with her and Pete without really telling them. But Kimberly worries about their relationship, thinking it isn't healthy. She reports it to school Principal Arnet, who dismisses her allegations because he thinks that Kimberly is telling falsehoods and because she is jealous of the attention that Amy has been getting from Pete. Amy is constantly being pursued at school by Pete, who often takes her to a closet in the classroom in order to kiss her in private. She doesn't like what he is doing and friends have been noticing a lot more too as rumors continue. Meanwhile fellow student and football player Cory Wilkins takes an interest in Amy, inviting her to the town Founders day festival once school lets out for term.

One night at the festival she accompanies Cory to the festivities and dances with him. Pete observes her behavior and is infuriated. In front of a crowd of people, he drags Amy away from Cory. Although his actions attract the attention of all the people at the party, no one intervenes. Amy then tries to break off their affair because she is uncomfortable with the manner in which things are moving, but Pete is able to win back her trust. The next day, her father is informed about what happened at the party by one of his friends. Norm confronts him, but Pete convinces him that he was only acting in Amy's best interests because Cory has a bad reputation and he feels like Amy is like his own daughter. Norm is placated somewhat.

While on a camping trip, Amy's friend Kelly catches Pete and Amy kissing. Afterwards Kelly confronts Amy and Amy tells her about her relationship with her teacher and states that she is in love with Pete. Things become even more difficult and uncomfortable for Amy when her mother, Betty Ann, (Mary Kay Place) finds a love letter to her daughter from Pete in her daughter’s purse one day while she is taking a nap. She immediately reports it to the high school principal. Matters are complicated because Amy and Pete both deny an affair. For this reason, the principal is unable to do anything about it. On her own, her mom goes to various moms in the town who have complained about Pete Nash to get some more evidence against him so she can build up a case against him.

When Amy decides to finally break off the affair, Pete will not leave her alone and his actions become even more irrational and possessive than they were before. Amy then admits everything to her parents and Pete is arrested. He receives a jail sentence of five months at the local state detention center as well as a 10-year period of probation.

Betty Ann decides to sue the school as well, because the school failed to act in spite of convincing evidence that supported the fact that an affair between a teacher and a student took place. Instead of the students showing sympathy towards Amy, they act hostile towards her because Coach Nash was suspended from his job before an important football game. The fact that her friends think that she was just as much to blame as Pete increases Amy's feelings of rejection and isolation. She confronts her friends and their now boyfriends at the Frozen Mug one night angrily accusing them of not being true friends when she hears them gossip about her and storms off, running into Missy Ross on the way out who kindly affirms she is doing the right thing. Things get worse when the Dustin house is vandalized by the football team one night. Amy considers dropping the case because she feels that the trouble she and her family have had to endure is not worth it.However in the end, she changes her mind and decides to go through with it. She is motivated by her strong feelings and does not want someone else to experience what she endured. Meanwhile a former friend/colleague of Pete Nash goes to visit him in prison and Pete begs him to give Amy a note from him which disgusts the friend who then leaves Pete telling him “that’s not how you love a child”. Amy and family continue to work with their family lawyers who think they have a successful case against the school board and will fight it and it gives Amy’s mom hope they will win their case. The film ends with Amy’s mom and Amy hugging in the car on the drive home and the mom alluding to Amy as “her hero” and Amy’s relationship with her family is lovingly restored. And it’s also revealed in the end they do win their case.

• Gary Cole as Pete Nash
• Nicholle Tom as Amy Dustin
• Mac Davis as Norm Dustin
• Mary Kay Place as Betty Ann Dustin
• Alyson Hannigan as Kelly
• Sara Rue as Kimberly Jones
• Sean Murray as Ralph
• Sheeri Rappaport as Missy Ross
• Ron Melendez as Cory Wilkins
• Tom Virtue as Principal Chuck Arnet

• For My Daughter's Honor at IMDb
• Profile on Lifetime