“Lean on Me” is a 1989 film about Joe Clark, a high school principal who was put in charge of a school that was underperforming academically while also struggling with multiple other issues. Morgan Freeman stars as Clark, a fictionalized version of the real-life principal of Patterson, New Jersey’s Eastside High School. In the 1980s, Clark gained notoriety for the disciplined and almost tyrannical methods that he used in an attempt to turn the school around.
