Thank you for the offer. I'm one of those now "independent" instructors. Just FYI, Sport Chalet dropped the news on us like a bomb: all store managers were sent an email the morning of April 15 with instructions to cease all scuba operations immediately. And the company canceled our insurance. They issued full refunds of class fees to students, regardless of how far along they were, and they paid instructors (legally they had to) for the portion of the classes they had completed.
Essentially, the students were told (by the company... not by the instructors) to go elsewhere and start over; the instructors were told essentially the same. Which left all of us instructors trying to pick up the pieces.
I had a group of nine college students, with plans for a trip to Palau, almost done with their class. So I paid my own insurance, kept my teaching status, and finished their OW dives. I think many other instructors did something similar.
The scuba business will be a little different now in So Calif; many of us are looking forward to seeing the return of small scuba shops that are run by divers instead of by corporate execs.
