President-elect Joe Biden is expected to name Miguel Cardona, who currently serves as Connecticut's education commissioner, as his pick for secretary of education, sources familiar with the decision told ABC News on Tuesday.

Throughout his presidential campaign Biden pledged to select a schoolteacher to lead the department, and Cardona fulfills that pledge, having started his career nearly two decades ago as an elementary school teacher in Connecticut, serving 10 years as a school principal and eventually rising through the ranks to become the state's top education official last year.

"First thing, as president of United States -- not a joke -- first thing I will do is make sure that the secretary of education is not Betsy DeVos, [and that] it is a teacher. A teacher. Promise," Biden, who regularly criticized Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, said at a National Education Association forum in July of 2019.

Cardona's background and deep experience in the nation's education system presents a striking contrast with DeVos, a wealthy, long-time Republican donor and political activist who has drawn sustained ire from Democrats and teachers unions throughout her tenure.

Cardona, whose parents moved from Puerto Rico to Connecticut, would be the third Latino, and the first of Puerto Rican heritage, that Biden has named to serve in his Cabinet thus far, following Alejandro Mayorkas named to head the Department of Homeland Security and California Attorney General Xavier Beccera to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

A spokesman for the Biden transition did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News on Cardona's potential nomination.

-ABC News’ John Verhovek and Molly Nagle.

After lawmakers finally approved a COVID-19 relief package on Monday evening, the president-elect welcomed the news on Twitter.

'I applaud this relief package, but our work is far from over,' Biden wrote. 'Starting in the new year, Congress will need to immediately get to work on support for our COVID-19 plan.'

He continued: 'My message to everyone out there struggling right now: help is on the way.'

The $900 billion COVID-19 rescue package now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris announced additional members of the White House senior staff on Tuesday, including positions that will be key to how the West Wing operates over the next four years.

The names announced Tuesday include Bruce Reed, a longtime aide to Biden who advised him on policy during the campaign, and someone who some progressives sought to block from getting a more prominent position in the administration, accusing him of being a deficit hawk out of step with their priorities. Reed was named deputy chief of staff.

The other appointees announced Tuesday include Anne Filipic as White House director of management and administration; Ryan Montoya as White House director of scheduling and advance; Gautam Raghavan as White House deputy director of the office of presidential personnel; Vinay Reddy as director of speechwriting; and Elizabeth Wilkins as senior advisor to the chief of staff.

“These experienced individuals are joining my administration to carry out policies that will put our nation on a path to building back better than ever before. They are respected leaders whose values and priorities align with my own and who will dutifully execute their roles to serve the American people. Their dedication to overcoming the challenges facing our country are rooted in their diverse backgrounds and experiences, helping deliver the change America needs in these difficult times,” the president-elect said in a statement.

-ABC News’ John Verhovek.

The House and Senate are set to vote Monday evening on a $900 billion pandemic relief bill after a deal was reached over the weekend following months of stalled negotiations.

The relief measure is attached to a $1.4 trillion spending bill.

Lawmakers are facing a midnight deadline when government funding expires.

The entire text of the measure runs 5,593 pages and members have had little time to read it.

Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who has maintained a strong anti-illegal immigration stance during her short tenure in office, has raised tens of thousands of dollars for her Georgia Senate runoff campaign from donors linked to a family owned company that was forced to pay out more than $95 million in fines for unlawful immigration practices and alleged hiring discrimination, disclosure records show.

Between late November and early December, Loeffler's campaign received more than $28,000 in contributions from at least 11 members of the Asplundh family, according to new campaign finance reports filed to the Federal Election Commission. The Asplundh family owns and operates the large, privately held Asplundh Tree Expert Company, which has done work for the U.S. Department of Energy.

In 2017, the Pennsylvania-based tree-trimming and vegetation management company had to pay the largest civil settlement ever levied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a yearslong investigation resulted in the company pleading guilty to "unlawfully employing aliens." Additionally, in January 2019, Asplundh agreed to pay $55,000 in back wages to settle hiring discrimination allegations stemming from one of its facilities in Georgia.

ABC News sent a detailed email to two staffers on Loeffler's campaign that outlined the company's past settlement over its unlawful immigration practices and back pay for alleged discrimination. In addition to asking for a general comment on the donations and the company's past, ABC News also asked if the campaign knew that members of the Asplundh family had donated and intentionally excluded their occupations and employers; if the campaign -- given the senator's stance on immigration and the company's infraction in Georgia -- wanted their support and their donations; and if the campaign did not want their support or donation, if they would refund them.

In response, Loeffler's deputy campaign manager, Stephen Lawson, replied, "[W]e're marking your email as spam. Please don't ever email us again."In a follow-up email a minute later, Loeffler's press secretary, Caitlin O'Dea, wrote, "And Merry Christmas!"

The Asplundh family did not respond to requests for comment, either.

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan and Soo Rin Kim