JERSEY CITY — Maybe the fourth time will be the charm?

The Jersey City school board on Monday passed its fourth resolution since Jan. 31 that tosses Marcia V. Lyles as the district’s superintendent.

The vote was unanimous, with the board’s lone supporter of Lyles, Matt Schapiro, absent. There was no discussion.

The board’s repeated votes to get rid of Lyles come as her allies accuse board members of deposing her illegally.

The first vote came at the board’s Jan. 31 meeting, when it approved a resolution relieving Lyles of her duties immediately, while continuing to pay her $231,000 salary and benefits until her contract expires in June 2020.

After the county superintendent told the board on Feb. 1 that she was nullifying the vote because the board did not terminate Lyles properly, the board met for an emergency meeting on Sunday, Feb. 3 to “clarify” that it was not terminating Lyles but putting her on paid administrative leave and barring her from school property.

When the board met the following day, Feb. 4, for a special meeting, it voted to “reiterate” that it was putting Lyles on administrative leave. The resolution passed on Monday is identical to the one approved on Feb. 4.

Asked why the board continues to take votes on Lyles’ employment, Board of Education President Sudhan Thomas referred to legal challenges to the prior votes.

“It’s out of an abundance of caution,” Thomas told The Jersey Journal. “If somebody challenges the meeting, we just want to be in the clear.”

In a lawsuit filed last week, Lyles ally Cathy Coyle alleges the Feb. 3 and Feb. 4 votes violated the state Open Public Meetings Act because the board did not properly notify the public about the meetings.

The board’s policy is to advertise special meetings 48 hours in advance in two newspapers, The Jersey Journal and The Hudson Reporter. The Feb. 3 meeting was not advertised and the Feb. 4 one was advertised in The Jersey Journal only.

Coyle’s attorney, Bertram C. Okpokwasili, himself a former board member, told The Jersey Journal they will confer with a judge to discern if Monday’s meeting adhered to OPMA.

Board members have been largely silent about tossing Lyles a year and a half before her contract expires. Thomas has chided Lyles for not fighting state school funding cuts, overseeing a nearly complete depletion of the district’s budget surplus and allegedly misleading the board about student achievement.

On Monday, Thomas said the fourth vote might not be the last. The board may vote to reaffirm its decision on Lyles at its next regular meeting on Feb. 28.

A request for comment from Lyles’ attorney was not immediately returned. Lyles on Jan. 30 filed a federal lawsuit against Thomas, the school board and the local teachers union alleging they harassed her, embarrassed her and took actions intended to make her fail.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.