Zoey Brooks and her younger brother, Dustin are new students at Pacific Coast Academy (PCA), an elite boarding school in California. While there, Zoey meets Chase Matthews, a friendly guy with high hopes of getting a girlfriend. Chase leads Zoey to her dorm, where she meets Nicole Bristow, a savvy girl who is easily attracted to hot boys, and Dana Cruz, a tomboy who does not accept diversity. A boy named Logan Reese challenges the girls to a basketball match. Logan picks his team, which includes Chase and Michael Barrett, another friendly guy who is willing to accept a challenge. Zoey chooses her team, which includes Nicole, Dana, and Quinn Pensky, a meddlesome scientist who is always inventing wacky items. The girls lose the basketball game by one point, prompting Logan to tease them. The coach of the basketball team then asks Zoey and Dana if they want to join the basketball team because they helped the most. Zoey accepts, while Dana says she will "think about it."

Zoey's roommates, Nicole and Dana, do not get along and fight every day, which drives Zoey crazy. Once Zoey tells them how annoying they are, they go against Zoey and all three of them are not friends anymore. Zoey decides to move in with Quinn, but soon finds her constant testing experiments bothering. Since Nicole and Dana are not her friends and Quinn is strange to be around with, Zoey starts hanging out with Chase. Zoey and Chase plan on watching a movie. Logan keeps on telling Chase that he is in love with Zoey and should try getting her away from making up with Nicole and Dana. As the movie rolls around, Zoey has already become friends with Nicole and Dana and the movie date, meant for 2, becomes a movie date of 4. Meanwhile, after spending all his money on gummy worms, Dustin is trying to find a way to earn money. He tries tutoring students how to speak Spanish only to fail miserably as Dustin hardly knows Spanish. In the end, he succeeds in earning money by playing guitar and sing his own song, "Gummy Worm Blues."

The girls decide to get even with the boys after falling victim to their pranks, but Zoey's prank puts all the girls at PCA in danger of being expelled.

Zoey's prototype backpack gets stolen by a PCA bookstore employee, Stacy, and the whole school goes crazy over 'Stacy's' backpack design.