Dr. Brunn treated to pre-mortem eulogy at hearing
By:Eric Schwarz
Jim Brunn was alive and well the day after.
That was the day after more than 240 parents, teachers and students gathered. Most were there, judging by the speakers, to support him against a specific complaint of running the school in the style of a “concentration camp,” but a nonspecific charge.
You’d think the way people were speaking of him, he was retiring or otherwise leaving Manville.
Very few people get such a vast number of bouquets thrown at their feet while they’re still with us, and smaller still is their number when they are authority figures like Dr. Brunn.
The speeches were testament to the difference Dr. Brunn has made in their lives.
It was like a scene out of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” where George Bailey gets to see what life would be like if he had never been born.
Or maybe more like “This Is Your Life,” the TV show where the guest was honored by friends and family.
Except the incident which prompted the meeting was far from friendly.
Dr. Brunn had aroused the ire of the Zuza family by suggesting, loudly, that if they felt the Manville School District could not satisfy them, they might think of enrolling their children in Christ the King.
Joseph Zuza Jr. had been suspended for taking part in a fight, though the boy’s father said Joseph Jr. was not the instigator.
Dr. Brunn and Lillian Zuza, the boy’s mother, raised their voices the day of the meeting, according to the principal.
From the descriptions given by Dr. Brunn and Mr. Zuza, calm, cool and collected were not the watchwords of the day.
But to listen to many others who spoke in Dr. Brunn’s behalf last week, “concerned” and “dedicated” certainly do describe the principal. And to deal with the situations they described, calm, cool and collected would also be necessary qualities.
One after another came the accolades, many of them pointing to a marked change at ABIS since Dr. Brunn became principal in 1997.
Bettyjane Bittle spoke of her son Edward, a seventh-grader: “My son has a habit of not wanting to go to school,” said Ms. Bittle, a single mother of three.
She said Dr. Brunn has persuaded Edward to stay in school.
At least three students have told their parents or said at the meeting that they are glad they live in Manville because of the education they have received at ABIS.
Ash Engesser, a seventh-grader, said she asked her mother, “Is it possible for someone to be so nice and generous?”
She said her family considered moving out of the borough, but she has vetoed the move: “This is one fight that I am not standing back on.”
Heidi Paoli of North Third Avenue moved from Plainfield where she said students fear violence; yet they don’t in Manville.
Her older sister Maria mentioned that Dr. Brunn had read up on Tourette’s syndrome to help Heidi, who has the ailment.
Frank Kleckner, an eighth-grader who had been in trouble with the law, said he was ready to drop out before Dr. Brunn talked to him and that he and other students would leave if Dr. Brunn did.
Three to four years ago, calls to the police from ABIS were frequent, said Detective Thomas Herbst.
“Now the phone doesn’t ring,” Mr. Herbst said. “If I were a baseball coach I’d want nine Dr. Brunns on my team.”
Politics was not lost on the children.
Sixth-grader Charis Cyr said, “If you guys do fire Dr. Brunn, our parents, the people out here, will take you off the board.”
Renee Florek said she had received detentions before she came to ABIS and since then has seen positive changes in herself and her friends.
Jackie Benko told the crowd she had a baby at age 16. “Very many people said I was a different person. Dr. Brunn didn’t let that stand in his way.”
“He really cares about kids here,” said eighth-grader Chris Toro. “I used to hang out with a bad crowd. It would be a really bad thing if Dr. Brunn had to leave.”
Anne Marie Kralovich, a Brooks Boulevard resident, called the meeting “entertaining” and said she was “elated” about the students’ “respect and honor they give to a capable teacher.
“If it weren’t for the teachers I had in my early years I would never have reached the limits I did,” said Dr. Kralovich, who was born in the Manville section of Hillsborough in 1923.
Chris Preston, an eighth-grade social studies teacher, said he was not surprised the students mobilized to support a principal they like and respect.
“That’s the way the kids are in this town,” said Mr. Preston, a teacher in Manville for 11 years. “It was nice to see them come out; it really was.”