This MGM production was based on the best-selling pseudo-autobiographical book written by Louise Maxwell Baker, Snips and Snails.

Subsequently, Louise recounts many of the funny stories from her time as a teacher in Snips and Snails, which then translates into the film, Her Twelve Men.

Jan gets to know her twelve students and fellow faculty member Joe Hargrave, who is dating the rich Barbara Dunning.

She has so much sympathy for one young boy, Bobby Lennox, whose globe-trotting parents neglect him, that she reads letters pretending they are from his mother that Jan wrote herself.

Richard Jr. instantly alienates the other boys with his attitude and by refusing to confess to causing a fire alarm to go off, for which Dr. Barrett punishes the entire class.