07/06/2025
A new lawsuit has alleged significant failures from the Lacey Board of Education in addressing bullying - and Acting Superintendent Zylinksi is literally accused of blocking the door.
This case is best understood as a story about senior administrators who, the plaintiffs say, first ignored a student’s escalating pleas for help and then tried to keep those pleas literally behind closed doors. At its center are two district leaders—then-Superintendent Dr. Vanessa Pereira and Assistant (now acting) Superintendent William Zylinski—whose alleged indifference, and in Zylinski’s case physical obstruction, supply the spine of the lawsuit.
Summary of the complaint.
Filed on April 9 2025 in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Ocean County, under docket OCN-L-000994-25, the complaint (dated April 7 2025) is brought by former Lacey Township High School senior Summer Mahan and her mother, Stacy Nilsson, against the Lacey Township Board of Education and eight individual officials and teachers. The nine-count pleading seeks compensatory, punitive and attorneys’-fees damages, alleging violations of the state Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act, the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, the Civil Rights Act, and common-law duties. The thrust is that school officials knew about months of harassment, intimidation and bullying—and even death threats—yet failed to investigate or discipline anyone, then suspended Mahan when she finally fought back, forcing her to withdraw and finish high school online.
The December 8 2023 “blocked-door” meeting.
After Nilsson emailed Pereira on December 7 detailing the unchecked bullying and the district’s inaction, Pereira scheduled a meeting for the next morning with Nilsson, Mahan, Principal Jason King and Zylinski. According to the complaint, Nilsson announced she would record the session; the officials refused. When she ended the meeting and attempted to leave, Zylinski stepped in front of the only exit, blocking the family until Nilsson insisted he move and declared she would seek legal counsel. Plaintiffs cite this episode as an unlawful restraint and emblem of the administration’s deliberate indifference, underpinning negligence, emotional-distress and civil-rights counts.
Allegations against Former Superintendent Dr. Vanessa Pereira.
Pereira is sued both officially and personally. The complaint says she received Nilsson’s detailed email on December 7 but took no substantive action—no investigation, no parental notification, no safety measures—even though state law requires prompt HIB responses. By refusing to let the December 8 meeting be recorded and allowing Zylinski’s obstruction, Pereira is portrayed as fostering “a culture of secrecy and suppression.” These facts feed claims that she violated statutory duties, created a hostile environment and joined a civil-rights conspiracy.
Allegations against William Zylinski.
The complaint emphasizes two facets of Zylinski’s conduct. First, as assistant superintendent he supposedly had actual knowledge of the bullying yet failed to intervene, breaching duties under the HIB law. Second, his act of physically blocking the door on December 8 is pled as “extreme and outrageous,” supporting intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and reinforcing the conspiracy narrative. Because every substantive count is asserted against him personally, any adverse verdict could expose him to compensatory and punitive damages as well as fees.
Bottom line.
Plaintiffs present Pereira as the official who knew but did nothing and Zylinski as the deputy who literally embodied that inaction. Those two moments—the unanswered December 7 email and the blocked-door confrontation the next day—anchor the case and drive every claim for damages against Lacey Township’s top leadership.
