East Ventura County Edition : The Boys & Girls of Summer : Education: Youngsters whoop it up on the last day of school. Some teachers shed a tear while saying goodby.

As the final bell rang Thursday, hundreds of Valley View Junior High School students screamed with delight, hugging friends and stopping to scribble a few more yearbook goodbys before scattering in different directions.

School is out for the summer in Simi Valley, as it will be after today in several other Ventura County school districts and next week in Thousand Oaks and Oak Park.

“Oh, it’s so sad,” said Nicole Mott, 12, slinging her arms over the shoulders of two friends at Valley View. “I’m going to miss you.”

Pausing from signing Nicole’s yearbook, friend Nicole McKendricks, also 12, lamented, “I hate summer. There’s nothing to do.”

But not everyone held that point of view.

“I don’t have to put up with the teachers now,” said Joseph Dougherty, 14, who added that he plans to cap his eighth-grade year with a summer of sleeping in and playing basketball.

Students cleaned up, moved out, danced, partied and graduated throughout the Simi Valley Unified School District on Thursday. Even parents joined in the fun.

The school year also ended Thursday in the Ocean View Elementary and Rio Elementary school districts in Oxnard, the Ventura Unified School District and the Santa Paula Elementary School District. A half-day of classes in those districts was followed by ceremonies, yearbook signings and other special activities.

At Simi Valley’s Big Springs Elementary School, the PTA was credited with an elaborate toilet-papering job in Principal Lynn Friedman’s office. Left behind was a big bag of confetti and the note: “It could have been worse.”

But the school’s PTA president, Sandy Leon, played it cool.

“I saw the suspects from behind, but I couldn’t really identify them,” Leon joked during a morning visit to the school.

Parents lined the walls snapping pictures at a Big Springs assembly where children were honored for academic achievement, good behavior and perfect attendance. Afterward, the students streamed out for recess and class parties.

“We deserve summer for working so hard,” said fifth-grader Charles Pearson, 11, between bites of fudge-covered ice cream.

Sixth-graders received certificates of completion in graduation ceremonies marking their entrance into junior high. Meanwhile, fifth-graders looked forward to being the oldest students in school next year.

“We’re gonna rule,” said John Barth, 11, of Big Springs.

The significance of the day didn’t escape the notice of even the youngest students at Vista Fundamental School, where a class of kindergarten students swapped telephone-shaped paper booklets to exchange phone numbers and stay in touch.

“The last day? It’s fun, it’s wild,” said kindergarten teacher Mary Jane Helton, a 22-year teaching veteran.

But ultimately, Helton said, it’s sad when the children leave for the last time.

“I end up going home every year crying,” she said. “After 20-some years you still do it, because after a year it feels like they’re your children.”

Parent volunteers grilled hot dogs and passed out punch at class barbecues scattered around the Vista campus. Teacher Charlotte Kasten and her third-grade class rewarded mothers who serve as classroom volunteers by performing a country-style line dance to a popular country song.

“You could feel the excitement building all week,” Principal Sheila Robbins said of the school’s festive last-day atmosphere. “If we had another day, they wouldn’t have made it.”

Teachers in two of the school’s portable classrooms scheduled for summer remodeling harnessed their students’ energies by having them pitch in to move furniture out of the rooms.

Robbins stopped in to compliment one fourth-grade class whose room had been nearly stripped of its furnishings.

“Do we get something?” asked Shana Greenwald, 10.

“How about if I let you have tomorrow off?” Robbins shot back.

Then she added: “I know--no homework tonight.”

Last Day of School Hueneme: Today

Moorpark Unified: Today

Ojai Unified: Today

Oxnard Union High: Today

Pleasant Valley: Today

Conejo Valley Unified : Tuesday and Wednesday

Oak Park Unified: Wednesday