RALEIGH — Each of the 50 teachers, parents and students had a story to tell the Wake County Board of Education Tuesday, and the moral of each one was “keep our small schools.”

“Give the small schools a chance,” said Santisha Brown, a student at the School of Health Science who plans to enter Barton College this fall. “It changed my life.”

East Wake High School was divided into four small schools, the schools of health science, integrated technology, engineering and arts, education and global studies. The first of the schools was established five years ago, and the last two of the four schools last year.

East Wake and 10 other North Carolina high schools received an $11 million grant from the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation to make the change.

The grant is set to expire for the school of health science in 2005, for integrated technology in 2011 and engineering and arts, education and global studies in 2013.

This year the concept is up for review and board members are expected to decide at its June 2 meeting whether to continue it or return East Wake to a traditonal high school.

The band of representatives from East Wake High School told school board members the small schools changed students’ lives, caused teachers to blossom and resulted in one-on-one instruction that boosted student achievement.”

Charlene Adams, a math teacher, said she was able to assess her students’ learning styles and changed her method of teaching, something she never would have been able to do at a school with 1,600 students.

Ruby Leon, a college student who came back to lobby for her alma mater, said she had attended both large and small East Wake High Schools and the small schools changed her.

“I come from a culture where women aren’t educated,” she said. “I never thought I would speak publicly.... These skills I learned help maintain [me] in college.”

Her brother, Giovanni Leon, a senior, said the education he got at the school helped him win a scholarship to Wake Forest University.

Stuart Barber said his daughter went to magnet elementary and middle schools in Raleigh, but wanted to come home to high school and had thrived.

“I saw her become a leader among her peers,” he said. “At a large school, she would have just faded into the wallpaper.”

Amber Hales said her teachers offer her a home.

“The School of Health Science helped me turn my life around,” she said. “When I come to school, it’s my comfort zone. They don’t come to school to get a paycheck, they come to school to help us.... It changed my life.”

“I never give up on my students ever,” said William Burgess, a teacher at the School of Integrated Technology. “I don’t want the school board to give up on East Wake High School.

Lori Millberg, who represents District One which includes Wake Forest and all of eastern Wake County, said the showing was impressive.

“I was very impressed by it” she said. “It was 100 percent positive. It’s not like all the telephone calls I get. It made me feel good that there were so many parents and so many teachers who came out to speak.”