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The story about the Bronx teacher, Francisco Garabitos, who barricaded himself in a classroom and caused three schools to be evacuated this morning before being taken into police custody, keeps getting stranger. Earlier today, United Federation of Teachers President Weingarten apparently placed some of the blame for the incident on Garabitos’s principal, Dorald Bastian. She later distanced herself from those comments after a disturbing Web site operated by Garabitos came to light.

I didn’t make the press conference that Weingarten held as soon as she returned this afternoon from Washington, D.C., but judging from the statements I’ve just received from the principals union and the city Department of Education, she must have had some harsh words about Bastian.

Here’s what Chiara Coletti, the principals union communications chair, had to say:

There’s only one issue in the case of MS 328 and Francisco Garabitos. Mr. Garabitos — a teacher and a UFT Chapter Chair — threatened to bomb a school and blow up the 1200 children inside of it. He barricaded himself within a school room, pretending to wait for the bomb to go off. This is a serious criminal act.

Dorald Bastian, the Principal [of] MS 328, did everything he could do to protect the school today, and he and the NYPD should be thanked for their work.

It’s astonishing that the President of the UFT is now finding fault with the Principal, when one of her chapter chairs has committed a hideous crime directed against children. (more…)