CAMPUSES TRY TO COPE WITH HEAT AS CLASSES START.

Byline: Sonia Giordani Daily News Staff Writer

Frequent trips to the water fountain, wet paper towels on foreheads and absolutely no strenuous activities.

That's what Principal Neil Snyder suggested for his students at Ladera Elementary to beat the heat on the first day of school.

At one of the nine schools in the Conejo Valley Unified School District without air conditioning, Ladera teachers and administrators are keeping an eye on kids' health during the record-breaking heat wave.

``Usually the first day of school is not this hot,'' said Snyder, who allowed children to take water bottles out onto the play fields for the first time and limited play later in the day.

While parents, students and teachers may have prepared themselves for weeks for the first day of school, no one could prepare for the heat wave - or the thunderstorms - to hit the Conejo Valley this week.

In the Ladera cafeteria, more than 50 parents gathered Wednesday morning for the first Parent-Teacher Association meeting of the year, the ``Welcome Back Coffee.''

``Except we're serving lemonade this year,'' said PTA President Lori Stenovich. ``It's just so hot, so humid. I feel bad for these kids.''

While Conejo Valley Unified Superintendent Jerry Gross spent the morning visiting his district's schools, he also dropped off thermometers for teachers to hang in their classrooms.

``Our classrooms can get really hot,'' Gross said.

With outdoor temperatures exceeding 100 degrees, parents, students and staffers at schools with air-conditioning units counted their blessings.

Lang Ranch student Timothy Farrell, 7, said he liked attending Park Oaks Elementary the last two years but looked forward to starting the second grade at Lang Ranch.

``This is good because it has air conditioning and Park Oaks doesn't,'' he said.

At Newbury Park High School, the only area high school where none of the classrooms are air-conditioned, administrators worked out a schedule so a majority of students could start by 7:30 a.m. and end the school day by 12:20 p.m. if temperatures climb any higher in the coming days.

Newbury Park High Principal Max Beaman said parents and students would be given 24-hour notice if a scheduled change is implemented.

HOT SPOTS 

All classrooms in the Las Virgenes Unified School District are air-conditioned.

In the Conejo Valley district, most of the classrooms at Acacia, Aspen, Ladera, Manzanita, Maple, Park Oaks, Walnut and Weathersfield elementary schools and Newbury Park High School have no air conditioning.

And some but not all classrooms at Conejo's Glenwood Elementary, Redwood Elementary and the Conejo Valley Adult School are air-conditioned.

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BOX: HOT SPOTS (See text)