Unions that represent teachers and staff are putting pressure on the Toronto District School Board to revisit its "restart plan" for public schools this fall amid the pandemic.

In an open letter dated Wednesday to TDSB trustees and education director Carlene Jackson, five bargaining units that represent members of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF), Toronto Education Workers and Elementary Teachers of Toronto (ETT) implore the board "to take full responsibility for a safe school reopening in September."

The board will review the plan on Thursday and will be able to ask senior staff questions and make recommendations. After that, the plan will go to senior staff for approval, which could happen as early as this week. The plan will then be submitted to the Ontario education ministry for approval.

"If ever there was a time to stand up to this government that puts its own bottom line ahead of everything else, it is now, when the very health and safety of the students and staff in your charge are at risk," the letter reads.

Union pressure on the TDSB, Canada's largest school board, comes as criticism grows about the Ontario government's framework for school reopening. Premier Doug Ford has said he is following the advice of medical experts, but unions, teachers, parents and the official opposition say he is ignoring that advice and the plan will fail to keep students, staff and teachers safe.

Leslie Wolfe, president of OSSTF Toronto Teachers, the bargaining unit for 5,000 high school and adult day school teachers who work for the TDSB, said union leaders reviewed the board's plan on Wednesday morning.

"We jointly agreed that it falls far short of what we believe is required for a fully safe September for students and for staff. We felt it was important for the trustees and the director to hear from all of us together that we are not supportive of the plan in its current form," Wolfe said.

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"We think it is incumbent on the Toronto District School Board to put a plan in place that protects students and educational workers and teachers in Toronto rather than simply doing the bidding of the minister of education based on the ministry's edicts."