If the shooter doesn’t get them, the system will.

No Child Left Alive is the story of one year in a public school system. As teachers struggle to survive in a nightmarish world of practice standardized tests to prepare for practice standardized tests to prepare for the real standardized tests, an even worse nightmare awaits- a bullied senior with a deadly plan for revenge.

The novel’s lead characters include two administrators who leave their impact in different ways.

New Superintendent Carlton Dunn focuses on improving the graduation rate through various tactics, including bribing dropout gang leader Rico Salazar to return and using him as an enforcer to keep others from dropping out.

Assistant Superintendent Abigail Saucier is pushing the faculty toward teaching to the test, but she runs into an obstacle in her quest for high test scores- the low-achieving dropouts Dunn has brought back into the system.

Abigail also has to deal with her promiscuous 15-year-old daughter Diandra, who is dating Salazar.

Caught in the middle are the teachers, Teacher of the Year Walter Tollivar, a veteran instructor who is fighting a losing battle against Abigail’s reforms, and Kayla Newman, a second-year teacher whose fear of some of her students leads her to carry a gun in the classroom.

As the teachers deal with administrative directives and an out-of-control student body, one student is planning a shooting that will make Columbine pale in comparison.