Staff members at Gerstell Academy, an independent school in Carroll County, Maryland, were told this week that they would either need to come back to operate in individual or they may no longer have a job, 3 members of the school community informed HuffPost.
The sources who spoke to HuffPost state they believe this idea came straight from the school’s creator and chairman of its board of trustees, Frederick G. Smith, a leader of Sinclair Broadcast Group.
Sinclair, which owns hundreds of regional television stations around the nation with a conservative bent, has come under fire for its coverage of the coronavirus in recent weeks, minimizing the illness’s hazardous impacts and even dabbling airing interviews with conspiracy theorists. Smith co-owns the business with his brothers and acts as its vice president and director.
Gerstell Academy staff members have up until Friday to make their decisions about going back to school. Just school employees who are over the age of 65 or are currently going through chemotherapy are allowed to pull out of the school’s mandate, the sources stated. Educators who are immunocompromised or have actually immunocompromised member of the family are excluded of the equation.
Neither agents from the school nor Sinclair responded to HuffPost’s ask for remark.
School leaders gave teachers what was referred to as a final notice on Tuesday and gave them a number of days to decide. Formerly, the president of the school had informed instructors over Zoom to reach out if they were