As Porter begins her new position, the city looks to move forward from a pandemic that ravaged so many lives and left tens of thousands of families struggling with hard decisions about remote vs in-person learning. High school students return in person to their classrooms in a week for the first time since mid-November; middle schoolers returned last month, while elementary and special education students had been back in-person since early December. Nearly 300,000 students in grades 9-12 opted to continue to learn remotely. Porter signs on at a particularly challenging time in the Department of Education's history. The mayor and the city are currently facing a lawsuit that alleged that the school system's policies have contributed to segregation and racism.