As California's energy crisis worsens, skyrocketing power bills and rolling blackouts are holding many of the state's school districts—and their technology programs—hostage.

"We've been lucky in that we've had no blackouts at all, and all our servers have battery backups," said Kitty Sanchez-Pfeiffer, director of technology at San Marcos Unified School District (K-12, enr. 12,000). "We've also told our schools to shut their client machines down if there is enough warning—but, of course, if the blackouts ...