Class award

The Chico Unified School District announced this week that it had received the 2013 Leroy F. Greene Design + Planning Award of Honor for the 42,000-square-foot science-classrooms structure recently built on the Chico High campus. A press release says the “building’s shape and orientation on the site were carefully developed in order to save as many of the campus’ mature trees and to allow for maximum daylight entering learning areas at all times of day.”

The building includes 16 classrooms, three science labs and a student commons area. Also receiving the award was the DLR architectural firm, which designed the building. The award is named for former Assemblyman and state Sen. Leroy Greene, who during his 36 years in office sponsored bills to fund the modernization of school facilities. Greene, who died in 2002, also introduced the bill that legalized bingo in California and one that would have legalized prostitution. That measure failed.