Photo: The Donner clan celebrating; (from left, top) Steven Rotman, Susan Donner Rotman, Audra, Tara, Hazel and Abigail Donner.

It’s 9 p.m. on a school night but Hazel and Audra are bouncing around the Donner house, running ragged all sorts of adults who had gathered at the Payson Road abode to celebrate a newcomers entry into town-wide elected office.

So the kids got to stay up a late as it was a special night as their mom, Tara Donner, topped the ticket for the Belmont School Committee in the 2018 Belmont Town Election held on Tuesday, April 3. The educator who teaches at Winchester’s McCall Middle School, secured 38 percent of the votes beating out incumbent Susan Burgess-Cox and fellow newbie Jill Souza Norton in a surprisingly close election with just 400 votes seperating the three candidates.

For Donner, who lives with her wife, Abigail, and their two kids in Precinct 6, the victory was a bit of a surprise for the Town Meeting member. She told the Belmontonian [view the video below] that she will work on the committee to create a district-wide anti-bias agenda and use her experience as a long-time classroom teacher – the first on the committee in several years – to bring a practical expertice to the board.

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