Teachers, parents and students are holding a car parade at the Arizona Capitol on Wednesday to protest bills that they think would be harmful to schools and educators if passed.

One that's especially concerning to education advocates is SB 1783 by state Sen. J.D. Mesnard. The bill would essentially create a way for businesses to avoid paying the new Invest in Ed income tax surcharge meant to raise money for Arizona schools that voters approved in November. 

“So it’s a pretty sneaky attempt to basically slap voters in the face and say ‘We don’t care what you voted for, we want to protect our rich friends,’ and that is not OK," said Rebecca Gau, the executive director for Stand for Children Arizona, one of the organizations behind the Invest in Ed initiative. 

If the bill passes, Gau said it could cut the nearly $1 billion that the initiative is expected to raise in its first year by about half. This would hurt schools since the money raised would go toward raising teacher pay and fund career and technical education programs. 

Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association, is also concerned with other efforts that would to allow 18-year-olds to store loaded guns in parked cars on school campuses and require school districts and charters to post in advance a copy of learning materials and lesson plans. 

“It’s bills like that that are just bad ideas top to bottom that educators have to have conversations with legislators about so they can understand the danger that they are introducing if it's in the case of firearms or the educators they’ll pushing out of the profession if they are having them do meaningless tasks," he said. 

Instead, Thomas said educators need lawmakers to support them as they return to their classroom so they can do so safely.