Long-time New York educator Meisha Ross Porter to be first black woman to lead nation’s largest public school district
Richard Carranza, the current New York City Schools Chancellor, announced his resignation on Friday and said Meisha Ross Porter would take the job.
Porter will become the first black woman to lead the country’s largest school district.
“It’s the great privilege of my life right now,” Porter said at a press conference.
“She eats, drinks, sleeps and thinks all the time about New York and the children of New York,” Carranza said of her successor.
Porter takes on the role after the reopening of schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic has been widely hailed as a success. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told NBC’s « Meet the Press » Sunday that schools in New York City have done a « very good job in terms of leading the way » so that the other schools in the country are reopening.
Carranza cited the need for time to mourn her eleven family members and close friends who died from COVID-19.
« I feel like I can take this time now because of the place we are in and the work we have done together, » he said.
Carranza said the system has reopened safely for children of essential workers, distributed more than half a million electronic devices for distance learning, and delivered 80 million meals to its students.
“We stabilized the system in a way that no one thought possible,” he added. « The light, my fellow New Yorkers, is really at the end of the tunnel. »