BERNE — Once a parent, then a parent advocate, Lillian Sisson-Chrysler is the only person to successfully volunteer to take a seat at the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School Board.

Sisson-Chrysler said she received 317 signatures on her petition and has had a humble refrain for those she’s spoken to in the last month: “I have a lot to learn.”

Board member Gerald Larghe is retiring after one three-year term. He could not be reached for comment this week.

“People know me,” Sisson-Chrysler said of listening to constituents as a board member. “They see me in the community, they’ll talk.”

Sisson-Chrysler, 55, grew up in the Hilltowns in a family that has stayed here for generations and lives on the land in Westerlo where she lived as a child. Her father was vice president and superintendent of construction at Sweet Associates, a construction company in Schenectady. She graduated from BKW and earned an associate’s degree in occupational studies from the State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill.

When she was finishing her degree and searching for a job, she said, the openings in places as far away as Washington, D.C. didn’t appeal to her. She wanted to stay close to her friends and family in the Hilltowns and worked in food service in the district.

“The community gave me my education, and the school gave me my education,” Sisson said of her reasons for running. “So, if I can give something back, I’d love to give something back to the community.”

Sisson-Chrysler is now a Licensed Practical Nurse working as a charge nurse in Lutheran Healthcare Network in Delmar. She said she has been a representative on the negotiations board for her union, and oversees several nurses in her unit.

All three of her sons graduated from BKW and went on to take jobs in construction, which they had initial preparation for through Board Of Cooperative Educational Services classes while they were BKW students.

As her children needed special services, Sisson-Chrysler was asked to be an advocate for parents of special-needs children. For eight years, she attended meetings to help parents plan for the education of their students with special needs.

“They need options, and I learned that there were other options to the learning,” said Sisson-Chrysler.

She made a similar point in light of the controversy over state tests, as the high levels of students opting out across the state made headlines in April.

At BKW, parents sent in refusal letters for 38 percent of students for English, and 44 percent for math.

“I honestly do not understand why the parents are opting the students out. I would make my kids take the test,” she said, adding later that some students “can’t put it on paper,” so the scores shouldn’t be given too much weight in teachers’ evaluations.

Sisson-Chrysler has attended several recent meetings for the development of the district budget, which the board adopted last week at $22.3 million. Asked whether she would vote for it on May 19, Sisson-Chrysler said she hadn’t made up her mind. But the board was pressed for time, she said, and may have been able to find more things to cut out of the budget.

“I think the district is well funded,” she added.

In the next few months, the school board plans to hire a superintendent and a secondary-school principal after interim leaders in those positions have led the district. The last permanent superintendent, Paul Dorward, stayed for just three years. The latest one to be hired will start at the same time as Sisson-Chrysler. She hopes that person will have or create a connection with the community.

“I think it’s going to be a matter of selection,” she said, when asked what the board can do to retain a superintendent, “because they’ve paid money out and these people still move on.”

Sisson-Chrysler said she has had trouble understanding what has happened at board meetings because the dozens of pages of documents associated with the board’s agenda are not always available at meetings or posted on the school’s website, echoing a concern raised during recent board meetings by former board member Helen Lounsbury.

“It would help the public a lot if they could see some of those things, but they’re not seeing it, and I would have liked to see some of them,” said Sisson-Chrysler.

On what she wants to change as a board member, Sisson-Chrysler said she would work for more communication with the residents who don’t come to meetings.

“Maybe a lot of these people are elderly, they have children that are no longer in school, but they still pay their taxes and they need to be involved and I’m hoping to somehow communicate to them that they are part of the process and they need to remain part of the process.”