Plymouth High School has begun evaluating students on soft skills, in an effort to better prepare them for higher education, employment and society in general.


What are soft skills?

Soft skills are non-academic skills that increasingly are seen as valuable by employers, college admissions officials and scholarship award committees. Plymouth will evaluate four soft skills: collaboration, respect, initiative and work habits.


How will soft skills be evaluated?

Teachers will evaluate each student in each class on each of the four soft skills, using a shared rubric that outlines expectations.

Students will receive quarterly measures of their progress on developing soft skills along with their academic grades on their report cards. The measures will range from 1 to 4, with the highest level being 4.


How will the measures be used?

The measures will be discussed along with academic grades at PEP Talks, a series of individualized discussions involving a student, his or her parents and a counselor focused on preparing the student for the future.

The soft-skill measures will not appear on official transcripts, so it will be up to students to share the information with potential employers, admissions counselors and scholarship award committees.

A number of area businesses that employ students have signed the “Employer Agreement with Plymouth High School Regarding Soft Skills Assessment,” which indicates that they value the interpersonal and social skills taught and promoted at PHS. In addition, the businesses promise to ask potential employees to share the soft skills evaluations from their report cards.