When Christine Cannon, 46, walked into the Western Hills Middle School gymnasium, she didn’t expect to see NBC 10 and RIDE Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green waiting for  her. With 100 students there to cheer her on, Cannon learned she is a recipient of this year’s Golden Apple Award.

“I was overwhelmed,” said Cannon, who works as a reading consultant for grades six through eight.

The Golden Apple Award, according to NBC 10, “honors those who believe in the true spirit of teaching by making classrooms a creative and safe place to learn.” Melanie Manzi, a parent of two eighth grade twin boys – Maxx and Jake – nominated Cannon.

“It’s very humbling,” Cannon said. “Every teacher here is working together to provide not only an educational space for the kids, but also an emotional support system for them.”

She said the award really goes to all the teachers at the school.

Along with the surprise, NBC 10 and Infante-Green presented Cannon with $250 from Ocean State Credit Union which can be put toward purchasing items for her classroom. With the funds, Cannon will buy headsets for students which they can use when listening to audio on computers after an absence or reviewing portions of readings they did not understand.

As a reading consultant, Cannon teaches life skills classes, self-contained classes, intensive reading classes and content literacy classes. Some of the course topics include word recognition, letter/sound correlation and vocabulary fluency; she also works with students to improve their understanding of content while in class and helping with content literacy that entails gathering research and applying it to writing.

Cannon also runs the school’s Prism Alliance club, which is a gay, straight alliance club. She said after returning to school this past school year, a number of students voiced their preferred pronouns and preferred name. Cannon said students realized she was an ally and started meeting and talking in her classroom. The club now meets twice a month and has 30 to 40 students at meetings.

Cannon has called Western Hills her home for the past five years but has been a Cranston educator since 1998. She started at the John W. Horton School, moved on to Cranston East and found her way to Eden Park Elementary School before transitioning to Western Hills. She graduated from Lesley University in 1974 with a degree in special education and obtained her master’s at the University of Rhode Island in 2003.

Cannon said her favorite part of teaching is not only seeing students’ progress but getting to know them and seeing them develop as humans.

Her inspiration to become a teacher came from her dad who was involved with Special Olympics at Cranston East; he passed away in 2020.

“He used to bring me to Special Olympics games,” Cannon said. “He did a lot of volunteer work since I was a young age, and I just was always helping him and sitting with the teams.”

Cannon, who grew up in Cranston, attended Cranston East and would visit the life skills classes and work with the students instead of going to study hall.

Western Hill’s Principal Timothy Vesey said Cannon is humble and deserving of the award.

“She’s a great reading teacher – probably one of the best. She takes care of kids, and they know that she has their backs. Kids that aren't even her students that are walking around the school come to her,” said Vesey.

Vesey said the school learned about the golden apple award two days before NBC came to film and scrambled to put an event together. Vesey said the staff secretly walked around school, handed out hall passes to roughly 100 students and told them to meet in the gymnasium.

“We didn’t tell them what it was, just that it would be fun,” said Vesey.

Cannon said she noticed students walking through the halls but didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary.

Cannon’s husband, Jonathon, and daughter Elizabeth also surprised her at the school’s Golden Apple Award event. Cannon’s mom, who was in Florida, attended through FaceTime. NBC 10 will air their segment on Cannon receiving the Golden Apple Award on Thursday, March 31.