Christy Merryman
by Christy Merryman
Hi! I am Christy Merryman. I have been the School Counselor for Palmyra Junior-Senior High School for the last 4 ½ years. I have a wide range of duties and work with every aspect of guidance counseling. I work with students as an academic counselor primarily, but I also work with developmental issues and problem solving. I build the master schedule, enroll all of the students in appropriate coursework, and make schedule changes. I work with the 7th Grade Transition through the Orientation at Family Night Out in the Spring and through coordination of the Junior High Advisory Program. I also coordinate the Panther Pause All-School Advisory. I am in charge of the Terra Nova Testing and the PLAN, PSAT, ASVAB and the ACT (which we offer three times during the school year) and coordinate the ACT Test Preparation Program.
Seniors require a lot of my time. I closely monitor their transcripts, coursework, and grades to make sure they remain on track for graduation. I make scholarship lists and college information lists. I help them apply to colleges, and I make sure that students get scholarship applications for any scholarship that they qualify for or that they want to apply for. I arrange for college representatives and members of the military to have opportunities to visit with our juniors and seniors. I provide class meetings to be sure they get information they need like “Financial Aid and How To Fill Out the FAFSA.”
I work with community organizations such as Partners for Otoe County, the Healthy Youth and Families Committee, the SAIL Conference Committee,( the 7th Grade Leadership Conference), CASA, the Otoe County District Attorney’s Task Force, and TeamMates. I am also the sponsor of Palmyra High School Student Council and National Honor Society.
I work with teachers through our Professional Learning Community.
I began my career in education in Norman, Oklahoma where I taught English, Spanish and Journalism before I became a counselor. I was a counselor for thirteen years and head of the Counseling Department for nine of those years before I became an Assistant Principal at Norman High School. I have one daughter who lives in New York where she works in Rockefeller Center for Global Asset Management, Inc. I moved to Nebraska and live in Lincoln to be closer to my sister who has lived in Nebraska thirteen years.
After thirty years in education, I am still delighted and surprised by teenagers. It is so exciting to work with students who are standing at the precipice of adulthood. My greatest joy is to watch the students I have worked with graduate from high school and start on their journey through life. There is nothing so rewarding as having students come back to show me how successful they are in college, the military, or the workplace.
What I hope students get from working with me are the ideas that anything is possible; that they are in control of their own destinies; that excellence is not an accident, it is hard work and determination; and that laughter should be part of every day. I have always set high standards for my students, and I am very rarely disappointed.
