Thirty, forty or fifty year old buildings need major maintenance and repair. Schools are literally wearing out. In addition, classrooms built decades ago are not adequate for today's technology and population. We seem to have passed several school funding initiatives. School funding decisions are made in Sacramento, by the State.
Local Districts have little control.
Despite a lot of publicity every time the state spends money for schools, California has simply not kept up funding levels for public education and has dropped in its nationwide ranking from 5th to 37th in spending per pupil. The District has taken a number of proactive steps to finance repairs. These include a partnership with Southern California Edison to reduce energy costs and a lease of surplus school land to Home Depot with those revenues going toward school repairs. The repair needs simply exceed these revenue sources. The schools are structurally safe and pose no immediate threat to teachers or students.