A candidate for school board in an affluent San Diego coastal area has a history of far-right activism and espousing anti-vaccine conspiracy theories — and some residents are worried she's hiding her political beliefs from voters.
Summer Boger is running for a seat on the board of the San Dieguito Unified High School District. The area in which she’s running — Area 3 — includes Del Mar, Solana Beach and Cardiff-by-the-Sea, as well as part of Rancho Santa Fe.
Her campaign website says she’s an educator, a healthcare practitioner and a mom.
It said she’s an special education instructional assistant in SDUHSD schools — a “dedicated teacher.”
Her campaign website lists her priorities as academic achievement, budget accountability and college and career readiness.
"With a parent’s perspective, a teacher’s compassion, and a leader’s commitment to common sense and academic excellence, Summer Boger is ready to serve SDUHSD students and families," the website said.
But what’s not there is raising concerns among parents who spoke with KPBS. They said Boger isn’t being up-front about her controversial beliefs and history of far-right activism.
An Encinitas attorney cataloged Boger's history of far-right activism in a Sept. 30 post on Substack and compared the campaign to a "Trojan Horse."
People in the community told KPBS the post is making the rounds in parent group chats.
Boger previously spoke to the Union-Tribune in a Q&A in which she admitted to using artificial intelligence to write her responses.
KPBS invited Boger to sit for an interview to answer questions directly. She declined to discuss anything other than her work with special education students.
After being sent a list of questions about her recent comments on abortion and vaccines, she sent KPBS a statement.
"With two weeks left, I'm keeping my focus on the job this seat actually does," Boger said in the emailed statement. "A school board doesn't set vaccine policy, abortion policy, or many of the other items you mention."
"It was like a fire hose"
Attorney Eleanor Musick — the author of the Substack post — is active in progressive politics and said she’s pretty well-informed as a voter.
But even she was caught off guard by Boger. One day, Musick said, she noticed a flood of Boger's campaign signs around the community. She had no idea who Boger was.
"Oh, man — it was like a fire hose," Musick said. "There was so much information. You know — just doing a simple Google search with her name."
And what showed up first, Musick said, was a Getty Images photo of Boger in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21, 2025 — the day after Donald Trump's second inauguration.
Boger wears a red "TRUMP" hat and holds a sign — "PARDON ALL J6 HOSTAGES DAY ONE," it said.
The day before, Trump had done just that, granting broad clemency to those charged in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
What bothered Musick, she said, was that nothing on Boger's campaign website suggested she was anything but a middle-of-the-road candidate.
"I think that she has a fooled a lot of people," Musick said.
The school board race is nonpartisan but Boger is endorsed by the county Republican Party. Her opponent, Helen Doyle, is endorsed by the Democrats.
"It's witches brew; it's witchcraft; it's sorcery"
Boger's record of anti-vaccine politics stretches back at least 16 years. She's featured in a 2010 KPBS report — "More parents not vaccinating kids," the headline reads.
By 2022, Boger was among a series of activists who were anti-vaccine, anti-mask and anti-trans showing up to San Diego County Board of Supervisors meetings to berate the board over its pandemic response.
"You must reinstate all lost jobs from mandates and resign from office," she told then-Supervisor Nathan Fletcher at a meeting April 6, 2022.
She returned weeks later on April 26 to oppose an anti-discrimination ordinance meant to protect women because the ordinance was inclusive of trans women.
"If I want to pretend that I'm a fireman but I'm not a fireman," Boger told the board during public comment. "It's a perversion."
Boger also served as the acting California state president of The Eagle Forum, the national conservative advocacy group started by anti-feminist and anti-gay activist Phyllis Schlafly in the 1970s.
In January 2023, during a two-hour webinar, Boger hosted a slide show promoting a range of far-right conspiracies related to vaccines, abortion and antisemitism that are not based in fact or science.
She espoused misinformation that vaccines contain aborted fetal tissue and "human DNA" and suggested vaccines in part cause children to identify as gay or trans.
"So when we are injecting female DNA into males and female DNA into females I really wonder how that’s changing our culture," Boger said. "It does affect our children's chemical makeup and the things that they think and feel ... it is no surprise to see the LGBTQ culture that we have today in our society."
She also said human fetuses are harvested from abortion clinics to make vaccines.
"We know that satanic rituals feed on the blood of innocent children and that there is a god — Moloch or Satan — that in the Bible they sacrifice babies to for the cleansing of the parents' souls," Boger said. "And that's exactly what abortion clinics today are doing."
She said vaccines are "witchcraft."
"It's satanic, like I said — it's witch's brew, it's witchcraft," Boger said "It's sorcery what they are doing ... the people that put together vaccines."
Early in the presentation Boger shows a slide equating the effort to vaccinate people as being the work of a "Jewish communist global satanic cabal New World order."
A "dedicated teacher"
Boger works part-time in the San Dieguito district as a substitute special education instructional assistant — a job title featured prominently on her campaign website.
But Jeff Ladman, a full-time special education instructional assistant in the district, said she's misrepresenting her work when she calls herself a "teacher."
"She is not an accredited teacher with a degree," Ladman said.
Ladman is father to triplet boys, all of whom he said are on the autism spectrum and part of the special education program.
Records from SDUHSD show Boger was hired as a substitute in March. In an email to a parent, a district official said Boger has worked a total of 46.3 hours since being hired — fewer than six work days.
Emily Berliant, of Cardiff, is a mother of three. She lives in Area 3 where Boger is running for the board seat. She said she thinks Boger isn't being truthful with voters.
"When somebody knocks on your door and says, 'oh, I'm just a mom trying to give back,' without disclosing what their views are about things that are very important in a public school system — like vaccination, like women's health issues, like, you know, inclusive education — that becomes a problem for me," Berliant said.
Berliant said she disagrees with Boger's politics but that's not her issue with this campaign — it's the fact Boger's left her politics out of it.
"She isn't telling constituents she harbors these views and has these political affiliations, which makes it really hard for voters to make an informed choice about her," Berliant said.
In her written response to KPBS, Boger said the teacher's union opposes her and is using her opponent's supporters to attack her.
Berliant, the only voter in Area 3 who spoke with KPBS, confirmed she supports Doyle for the board position.
