The San Dieguito Union High School District board sets budgets, policies and curriculum and hires the superintendent; district administration handles day-to-day operations. Summer Boger and Helen Doyle are competing for the board’s Area 3 seat, which represents Del Mar, Solana Beach, Cardiff-by-the-Sea and part of Rancho Santa Fe, in the Nov. 3 election. Boger, a part-time substitute special education instructional assistant in the district, has declined to discuss her activist history with a reporter, saying she would focus on her work in special education.
According to KPBS, Boger said she would not discuss matters beyond her school role. In an emailed statement, she argued that “A school board doesn't set vaccine policy, abortion policy, or many of the other items you mention,” and said that with two weeks remaining in the race, she would focus on “the job the seat actually does.”
Boger’s activist record includes work with the Eagle Forum, a national conservative advocacy group founded by Phyllis Schlafly in the 1970s. KPBS reported that Boger served as acting California state president. Her Eagle Forum biography says she joined in 2017 and became president of its California chapter at the end of 2021, and that she has “strongly opposed government imposed school mandates for vaccination.” The group listed her as a speaker for a December 2023 webinar titled “Dangers of Vaccines from the Beginning.”
A Record of Vaccine Conspiracy Claims
KPBS reported that Boger hosted a two-hour webinar in January 2023 in which she promoted conspiracy theories about vaccines, abortion and antisemitism. She claimed vaccines contain aborted fetal tissue and human DNA, and that human fetuses are harvested from abortion clinics to make vaccines. She also called vaccines “witchcraft,” presented vaccination efforts as part of a Jewish, communist and satanic global conspiracy, and suggested vaccines partly cause children to identify as gay or transgender.
Boger’s opposition to school vaccine requirements also appeared in earlier public advocacy. She organized a Carlsbad meeting focused on opponents of California’s Senate Bill 277 and told The Coast News that the law made her realize “the state wants to get between a parent and a child.” The outlet cited California Department of Public Health data showing about 89% of Carlsbad kindergartners in public and private schools had been vaccinated against measles. It also reported that Encinitas Union School District had the county’s highest nonmedical exemption rate, at roughly 12%, compared with 2.5% statewide.
Jan. 6 Ties and County Hearings
Boger’s public activity has also included support for people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection. KPBS reported that she was photographed in Washington, D.C., in January 2025 wearing a red Trump hat and holding a sign calling for those defendants to be pardoned. The photograph was taken a day before President Trump granted broad clemency to people charged in connection with the attack. In 2022, Boger spoke to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors about pandemic mandates and opposed a county anti-discrimination ordinance that included trans women. The supervisors approved the ordinance that May, according to the board’s meeting agenda.
The Area 3 contest is officially nonpartisan. KPBS reported that the San Diego County Republican Party endorsed Boger and Democrats endorsed Doyle. The station also reported on a late-September Substack post by Eleanor Musick that cataloged Boger’s far-right activism and likened her campaign to a Trojan horse.
Neighbors and Colleagues Raise Concerns
Some Area 3 residents told KPBS they are concerned that Boger has not discussed her political views with voters. Emily Berliant, an area resident with three children, said she was troubled by what she viewed as a lack of disclosure on vaccination, women’s health and inclusive education, and said she supports Doyle. Jeff Ladman, a full-time special education instructional assistant in the district whose triplet sons are on the autism spectrum and enrolled in special education, told the station that Boger is not an accredited teacher with a degree.
What the instructional-assistant role entails
The district’s job description says an Instructional Assistant-Special Education helps a certificated teacher provide instruction to individual students or small groups, under the direction of an assigned supervisor or certificated teacher. That describes the assistant’s supporting role, but does not by itself establish the position’s required qualifications or provide a detailed comparison with California teacher credential requirements.
District records and an official email reviewed by KPBS show Boger had worked 46.3 hours since the district hired her as a substitute in March 2026. KPBS also reported that Boger has said the teachers’ union opposes her candidacy and is using her opponent’s supporters to attack her.
Campaign Priorities and a Disputed Q&A
Boger’s campaign website describes her as a special education instructional assistant and “a dedicated teacher,” and lists academic achievement, budget accountability, and college and career readiness as priorities. In a San Diego Union-Tribune questionnaire, she named academic achievement, long-term financial stability and stronger support for students with disabilities as her top issues, summarizing her approach as “the ABCs: Academic achievement, budget accountability and college and career readiness.” The newspaper reported she has worked as a substitute special education instructional assistant in the district since March 2026.
KPBS reported that Boger acknowledged using artificial intelligence to write her responses to the Union-Tribune questionnaire. San Diego County election records list the Nov. 3 contest as a one-seat, full-term race.
