09/02/2026: Floods, Fires, and Smoke: How School Staff and Unions Are Addressing Emerging Weather-Related Hazards

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Photo of David Moore, Julie Van Winkle, and Sara Hinkley - Speakers

About the webinar:

Climate-related health and safety hazards in schools–including wildfire smoke, heat, and torrential rains and flooding–are all increasing. Hear about the impacts of these hazards on school-based workers, and how school staff are addressing them, including through collective action and organizing. This presentation will be facilitated by Tenaya Lafore, Ed.D, from the Labor Occupational Health Program.

This presentation by LOHP in collaboration with COEH is based on the School Action for Safety and Health (SASH) administered by the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation in the California Department of Industrial Relations through an interagency agreement with the Labor Occupational Health Program at the University of California, Berkeley.

Learning Objectives

At the completion of this activity, the learner will be able to:

Recognize environmental health and industrial hygiene measures to monitor and respond to climate impacts in schools
Explain workplace health and safety strategies to reduce exposure to smoke, heat, and flooding
Discuss strategies for school staff and unions to organize safer working and learning conditions

Speaker: David Moore, MPH, CIH, CSP

David M. Moore is a Certified Industrial Hygienist, and graduate of UC Berkeley’s Industrial Hygiene Master’s Program. He is a Principal Consultant and Co-Founder of Intrinsic Environment, Health & Safety. He and his life partner of 25 years began Intrinsic EH&S in 2017, providing occupational environmental health services to local businesses, universities, governmental entities, engineering firms, and non-profit organizations. In his spare time, he can be found in the kitchen, hiking, practicing martial arts or paddleboarding with his family.

Speaker: Julie Van Winkle

Julie Van Winkle is the AFT Vice President for United Teachers Los Angeles, the largest teacher union in California (second-largest in the nation) representing over 37,000 members. Julie is one of the lead negotiators on the UTLA Bargaining Team, and the writer of the language for UTLA's historic Healthy Green Public Schools MOU. This document (established in 2023 and updated in the 2025 contract settlement) has led to hundreds of school greening projects, the expansion of LAUSD's EV bus fleet, increased installation of solar panels on school buildings, and more. One of Julie's main goals as a leader of the union is to work with the school district and other unions to establish Career Technical Education pathways for students to transition from high school graduation into well-paid, AI-resistant union jobs with benefits that allow them to afford to live and thrive in LA.

Speaker: Sara Hinkley, PhD

Sara is California Program Manager at the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley. She oversees the Center's work on school facility finance, facilities master planning, policies that promote equitable access to safe, healthy, and high-quality school facilities, and efforts to evaluate their quality across California. She also leads the Center's research on climate-resilient schools and led its work on education workforce housing. Before coming to CC+S, Sara was a lead researcher at the UC Berkeley Labor Center and associate director of the UC Berkeley Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. She has an extensive background in labor, workforce, and economic development policy, the education workforce, low-wage workers, technology and government, and public finance. She is a former school board member in Albany USD.

Certificates of Completion

Certificates of Completion will be available to webinar participants who are present for the complete, live webinar, and logged in with their registered email address. Call-in attendees are not eligible for certificates at this time - Please download the Zoom app to log in via email on your smartphone whenever possible.

In order to receive your Certificate of Completion, qualified learners must complete the post-webinar evaluation within 7 days of the webinar. A link to the evaluation will be emailed to qualified learners 24 hours after the webinar via no-reply@zoom.us. Qualified learners who submit their evaluation will receive a Certificate of Completion via email, and can also print/save the certificate from their browser after submitting their evaluation.

If you're not able to attend the live presentation, no problem! We record most presentations and will host them on our website provided we have permission to do so. Presentation recordings are not eligible for Certificates of Completion.

ACCESSIBILITY:

If you require an accommodation for effective communication (ASL interpreting/CART captioning, alternative media formats, etc.) to fully participate in this event, please contact Will Bellamy at (510) 642-8365 or wbellamy@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7-10 days in advance of the event.

About the Labor Occupational Health Program

LOHP promotes safe, healthy, and just workplaces and builds the capacity of workers and worker organizations to take action for improved working conditions. We work with a range of partners including unions, worker centers and community organizations, agencies, employer groups, policy makers, and academics.

We look broadly at the impact of work on health and we advance the principle that Healthy Jobs – which pay a living wage, provide job security and benefits, protect against hazards and harassment, have reasonable workloads, and engage workers in the decisions that affect them – are a basic human right.

ACCREDITATION

The Center for Occupational and Environmental Health designates this activity for a maximum of 1 Contact Hour. Participants should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation.