The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation say the large depiction unconstitutionally promotes religion. T

They filed a lawsuit last week in U.S. district court on behalf on an unidentified student and two parents.

The Jackson City Schools board will meet Tuesday evening in an elementary school gym.

Superintendent Phil Howard says the district was “shocked and surprised” at the suit. Attorneys for the district have been examining the matter.

The district says the picture was donated by a student group and has been in the school since about 1947.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups began gathering signatures last year to put a repeal of House Bill 194 on the fall ballot.

Common Cause Ohio’s Sam Gresham says lawmakers repealing the law ahead of the fall election would only confuse voters.

“Anything that they do right now is going to be thrown into a time period when the election starts. If they pass it in May, (it starts) 90 days after that. It’ll cause too much confusion in the election process,” Gresham says.

Gresham says it takes an average of two years for poll workers and voters to completely adapt to changes in voting laws, and he says any alterations in such a big election year would be confusing and unfair.

A repeal of the law that’s on this fall’s ballot has passed the Senate, but no hearings have been scheduled in the House.

The measure referred to as the “heartbeat bill” would ban the procedure at the first detectable fetal heartbeat and is slated for a committee hearing Wednesday.

A second bill would prevent certain health insurers from covering abortions. It’s scheduled to be voted on Tuesday by a Senate panel.

The executive director of ACLU of Ohio said Tuesday both bills are “clearly unconstitutional” and that the organization would fight them in court should they become law.

Backers of the heartbeat bill have said they’re confident the legislation could pass legal muster.