NEWARK, N.J. (AP) – A lesbian student claimed that abuse from fellow teenagers at Holmdel High School was so severe she avoided bathrooms and wore gym gear under her clothes so she would not have to change in the locker room.

Nancy Wadington said she was forced to leave the school in her junior year because of persistent assaults, including one in which she was pushed down a stairway and hurt an ankle, according to a lawsuit filed last week against the Holmdel Board of Education.

“While I was at Holmdel High School, I felt every day I would be attacked by students, verbally and physically,” Wadington, now 18, told reporters at a news conference in Newark announcing the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, Wadington’s backpack and books were stolen several times, and in one case they were found in a boys’ bathroom covered in urine.

Her mother, Barbara Wadington, said at the news conference, “I contacted the school on many occasions, pleading with them to protect my child, but nothing worked.”

The lawsuit, filed in Monmouth County’s state Superior Court in Freehold, seeks unspecified monetary damages and charges that the district violated the state’s Law Against Discrimination by failing to take effective steps to halt harassment.

The lawsuit also outlines procedures for the school board to adopt “to remedy its systemic failure to address and end anti-gay discrimination and student-on-student abuse.”

Superintendent of Schools Maureen Flaherty, who came to the district in 2003, said she had not heard of the Wadington matter before the filing. “We’ll obviously look at the lawsuit and do our internal investigation,” she said.

The district has had a policy against harassment and bullying since June 1998 that includes sexual orientation as an area that is off-limits, Flaherty said.

Board attorney Martin M. Barger said he also had not heard of the situation until the lawsuit was filed. “I don’t recall it being discussed at a Board of Education meeting, publicly or privately,” said Barger, board attorney since 1978.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Nancy Wadington by Lambda Legal, a group that advocates for GLBT civil rights. Also handling the suit are lawyers at a New York law firm, including Robert J. Del Tufo. He served as attorney general for New Jersey in the early 1990s under Gov. James J. Florio when the Law Against Discrimination was amended to bar bias based on sexual orientation.

A Lambda Legal staff attorney, Alphonso David, said the abuse began almost immediately after Wadington came to the school as a ninth-grader in fall 2001 and was “outed.”

“Nancy was forced to focus on protecting herself, rather than her education,” David said. The verbal abuse included threats and taunts, the lawsuit said.

Despite repeated complaints to school officials from the student and her mother, no student was expelled, he said.

When Wadington twisted her ankle after being pushed down the stairs, the gym teacher’s “only response was to send her to the school nurse,” the lawsuit said.

David said he did not know why Wadington did not bring criminal charges of assault.

The district ultimately classified Wadington as “emotionally disturbed” and transferred her to Collier High School, another public school in Holmdel that handles “special needs students,” the lawsuit said. She graduated in June and is considering college, David said.