Colleagues, Please forgive this brief intrusion into your well-deserved summer recess but I want to make sure that you hear directly from us first about the most recent development with the ratification of our tentative Agreement for a Modified One-Year Extension of our current contract with an improved percentage salary increase and a much needed Teacher Retention Incentive. We reached that agreement on Monday, June 23rd. As you know, the new agreement called for a 4% salary increase and a $2,500 Retention Incentive. Interim Superintendent Strickland and I signed off on it that same day.  The RTA Representative Assembly then ratified it by an overwhelming vote (95 to 1) on Wednesday, June 25th. That same day, I emailed all RTA members the signed agreement and the accompanying new salary schedule. The RCSD Board of Education was scheduled to ratify the Tentative Agreement on the very next day, June 26th but they postponed the ratification vote and then voted the pact down at...