Not many teachers can say they’ve taught almost every student while walking down the halls of a seventh through twelfth-grade school building. But Victoria Wink, physical education teacher at Oyster Bay Middle/High School, can.
Wink said teaching physical education is a “special discipline” that allows her to meet almost every student in the building at some point in their seven years at the school. She said it’s one of the benefits of teaching in a district with small class sizes.
Oyster Bay feels like a “second home,” Wink said.
After an anonymous nomination last fall semester, Wink was recently awarded Nassau County’s 2024-2025 Secondary Physical Education Teacher of the Year.
“I’m honored,” she said. “I’m grateful to be considered.”
Wink said she tries to be as “progressive as possible,” with her lessons, incorporating elements of technology and innovation into the classroom. One of her classes used virtual reality to analyze their heart rates, learn human anatomy and play fitness games, she said.
In addition to using new technology, Wink said she tries to think “outside of the box” when planning lessons to give her students a unique gym class experience. In her gym classes, she teaches a unit on “Games Around the World,” which features rugby, cricket and tinikling dance, she said.
Wink said many of her students enjoy “things they’ve never seen before” and said that the unit sparks conversations about students’ cultures and personal connections. Since her senior students have taken twelve years of physical education, they enjoy units focusing on new sports, she said.
“Any units that they don’t know much about are the ones that they get the most interested in,” Wink said.
In addition to teaching physical education, Wink supervises two clubs and coaches two varsity athletic teams at the high school. She said she supervises the health club and a student council advisor, and she coaches the varsity softball team and acts as the varsity volleyball assistant.
Superintendent Francesco Iannai congratulated Wink at the Feb. 4 board of education meeting.
“Since joining our district in 2017, Ms. Wink has consistently gone above and beyond as an exceptional educator and a true inspiration to our colleagues and students,” he said.
Wink said she’s grateful for her colleagues in the athletic department and district as a whole.
“Awards like this can’t happen without the guidance and support you have around you,” she said.
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