Money to Cool Schools Is Cut : Education: The state eliminates the air- conditioning fund, which parents say adds to the argument against year- round classes.

Parents already angry over the prospect of year-round classes at 45 San Fernando Valley schools got more bad news--and another weapon in their fight against the proposal--when Los Angeles school officials announced that the state allocation board had removed $32 million earmarked for air-conditioning schools.

The elimination of the state air-conditioning fund, which the board learned about late Monday, has taken away the remaining incentive offered by the Los Angeles Unified School District to gain parental support for its proposal to increase school capacity.

In December, district officials told many parents that schools converting to year-round schedules would get air-conditioning as well as state incentive money.

Earlier this month, the state incentive funds--which would have paid the district an additional $150 a year per child in year-round schools--were set aside while the program was studied by the state Department of Finance, and the legislative analyst.

Opponents of year-round classes said the certainty of classes in the blistering Valley heat has strengthened their resolve to fight the district’s proposals to increase capacity 23% by operating schools year-round, increasing class size or operating on double sessions.

“This is only going to give us more ammunition to wage our war,” said Rita Morrow, a parent of two children who attend Dearborn Street School in Northridge.

Morrow is one of hundreds of Valley parents who have spoken against the plan during board hearings and community meetings held in the past month. She has been circulating a petition with names of parents who promise to keep their children home when temperatures are predicted to exceed 90 degrees or when the air is judged unhealthful.

Los Angeles Schools Supt. Leonard Britton on Monday recommended that all schools in the 610,000-student district convert to some form of year-round schedule by the summer of 1991. The school board on Monday is set to decide whether to change 109 elementary schools to year-round schedules, beginning this summer. Forty-five of those schools are in the Valley.

The changes have been prompted by rapid growth in the district, which officials said will run out of elementary school seats by this summer.

On Jan. 24, the state allocation board transferred $26 million from the air-conditioning fund to a new schools construction account, said Brent Korff, of the Office of Local Assistance. The remaining $6 million would be doled out for other projects to be decided later. The money could be returned to pay for air-conditioning projects if voters approve an $800-million bond issue that is likely to be on the June ballot, he said.

District officials said Monday they estimate it will cost more than $150 million to air-condition 103 elementary schools.

Without the incentives, parents opposing the district’s proposal say they expect others to join them.

“They tossed the carrots, but now all the worst-case scenarios are being played out,” said Gail Reisig, whose children attend Dixie Canyon Avenue School in Sherman Oaks. “All the reasons to go year-round are gone.”

Cal State Northridge geography professor William Bowen, whose two children attend Valley schools, said data from the campus weather station over the past 20 years proves what many know intuitively: “The summers are very hot.”

Bowen said the district will be liable for dangerous conditions in classrooms, which he estimated to be 10 degrees hotter than temperatures outside.

Los Angeles schools spokeswoman Diana Munatones said under district policy schools can be closed early and children sent home when temperatures reach 95 degrees.

“But the reality is we live with high temperatures in our district,” Munatones said. “Everyone would like to see air-conditioning but our main problem is getting more seats.”

Other district officials and school principals say that many of the year’s hottest days are in September and October, when children are already back in school under traditional schedules.

At least one of the Valley’s 15 schools already on a year-round schedule appears to have beaten the effects of summer heat on its students.

Reseda Elementary School Principal Janie Taylor said for the past three years students who attend class during July and August come to school at 7:30 a.m., half an hour earlier than usual, and leave at 1:30 p.m. The school has air-conditioning in only two of its 13 classrooms.

“That schedule gets students out of the classroom before they get too hot,” Taylor said. “It gets warm but not unbearable.”

But in the East Valley, 30-year teacher Stan Malin predicted elementary school students will learn little in the summer heat. He said many teachers are also unhappy about the district’s proposal.

“Go into the supermarket, the bank, anywhere, it is air-conditioned,” said Malin, who teaches at Telfair Avenue elementary school in Pacoima. “I can think of no other profession besides teaching that works without air-conditioning.”