Thank you @xmasbaby0 & @Opus 17 for those quick and helpful replies! I called the owner of the studio and found out that I got this wrong... they actually switched from 1099-NEC to W-2 (maybe someone else submitted the SS-8... who knows). That will be very helpful going forward for his 2021 taxes, but it feels wrong to have to pay the SE tax for 2020 when this change would seem to confirm that he was an employee all along.
