On an unseasonably warm February morning, Principal Condra Allred walked the hallways of Cleveland Elementary School’s 76-year-old building wearing a pink fanny pack slung over one shoulder like a bandolier. Inside the pack, a walkie-talkie squawked with the voices of staff who needed back-up on the playground, or a bathroom break, or help soothing a troubled student.
Allred had fixes for every crisis but one: How to keep the district from closing her school.
“My own son came home and said, ‘Are you gonna have a job?'” Allred said of the day news broke that the Cedar Rapids Community School District in eastern Iowa is considering closing up to six elementary schools in a dramatic effort to cut costs…