NPS Art Educator Named 2025 Virginia Elementary Art Educator of the Year by VAEA

The 2025 Virginia Art Education Association (VAEA) conference was held in Norfolk on November 20–22, 2025. One of Norfolk Public Schools’ educators received top honors. Angela Winters was selected as the 2025 of Virginia Elementary Art Educator of the Year by VAEA.

Winters said: “I am so very honored to have been selected as the 2025 Virginia Elementary Art Educator of the Year. The Virginia Art Education Association supports the needs of our students, creates a collegial community to support teachers across the Commonwealth and across the nation. We all work together to create a universal visual language, embrace imperfections, celebrate student successes, and build a community for our children.”

Bruce Brady, executive director of curriculum and instruction and interim chief academic officer, was the opening speaker and encouraged the artists in the room to continue their commitment to students and the arts. “In Norfolk Public Schools, we understand the transformative power of arts education,” said Brady. “We firmly believe that the arts are subjects every student deserves to experience. The arts may not appear on state accountability reports or factor into accreditation calculations, but that does not make them any less critical to student development.”

For Winters, the arts are transformative in power and purpose. Currently, she teaches at Oceanair Elementary but has taught for Norfolk Public Schools for 31 years as a visual arts educator and before that as an elementary classroom teacher.  Previously, she has worked at Willard Model, Chesterfield, James Monroe Elementary Schools as well as Blair Middle School. 

Question: What do you love about the visual arts? 

Winters: Art gives everyone the opportunity to tell a visual story.  Every student is gifted in the art classroom; we just try a variety of mediums until we find what speaks to us.  It is wonderful to see students' excitement when they accomplish something they thought impossible and they can share it with others.  Visual Arts provides a platform for students to problem-solve with real materials to create original work.  

Question: How special is it to share the visual arts with kids at NPS?

Winters: Visual Arts provides an opportunity for all students to share their ideas and visions with the world.  It gives students a meaningful way to express themselves.  Art encourages students to attend school and provides a safe space to work through critical thinking challenges.  We laugh that in other classes everyone should have the same answer to a problem, but in the art classroom, everyone should have their own individual solution to the challenge.

Question: What is the importance of visual arts?  

Winters: Art provides a lens to view our history.  Through the artists' perspective, we see the past in ancient structures, paintings, sculpture, textiles, jewelry, glass, and more.  Art gives a voice to those that are planning new visions for the future as well.  Artists can record what is important to the world at any given time. Art creates a snapshot of the NOW, as we see it.  The VAEA uses the following quote to focus why the arts are important. “The Arts and the Creation of Mind,” Elliot Eisner describes 10 of these skills:

1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.

2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.

4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed but change with circumstance and opportunity.

5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know.

6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects.

7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material.

8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said.

9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

10. The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults believe is important.

Also, Winters teaches at Old Dominion University in the Theatre Program and works as a visiting artist and designer. “I have been a costume, set and lighting designer, and teacher for the ODU Theatre Arts Department for over 35 years,” said Winters. “My amazing husband Konrad and I co-wrote the play "Narcissus, The Ultimate Selfie" and I was also the production designer for the show.” 

She has been the recipient of numerous research grants from the National Art Education Foundation, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Toshiba Foundation, The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and The Jefferson Foundation.  Winters is an active member within the NPS Visual Arts community and has been on the Pacon Paper Teacher Advisory board, Faber-Castell Teacher Advisory board, past VAEA Board Member and is a member of Phi Kappa Phi. 

Two Art Educators to Represent Virginia at the 2026 National Arts Education Association(NAEA)

In addition to honors, it was also announced during the 2025 VAEA Conference that two of the 2024 VAEA award recipients will advance as the NAEA Southeastern Region nominees representing the Commonwealth of Virginia. Educators Samantha Wegener of Maury High School and Secondary Art Teacher of the Year and Dr. Georgeanna Fellio, Senior Coordinator of Art Education who received the Art Administration and Supervision Award of the Year will represent Virginia at the NAEA National Convention in Chicago, IL, in March 2026 where awards will be presented.