Soft skills are non-academic skills that increasingly are seen as valuable by employers, college admissions officials, and scholarship award committees. PHS focuses on collaboration, respect, and work habits.
Teachers evaluate each student in each class on each of the soft skills, using a shared rubric that outlines expectations.
Students receive quarterly measures of their progress on developing soft skills, along with the academic grades on their report cards.
The measures are discussed along with academic grades at PEP Talks (the 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 do not appear on official transcripts, so it is up to students to share the information with potential employers, admissions counselors, and scholarship award committees.
A number of area businesses that employ students (listed below) 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.
