A school bus driver let a child off to save a kitten. Calls to reinstate her are going national.

Thirty minutes after Taffy Thomas’ 10-year-old son Alex got on the school bus, she got a call from the driver.

“We found a cat in the middle of the road, and Alex said that you would take care of it,” Thomas recalled the driver telling her on Sept. 30.

Cynthia Morgan dropped Alex and his classmates off at North Harford Elementary School then circled back to his home to give his mom the black and blotchy-orange kitten, Thomas said.

The thought of her son in the middle of the road didn’t occur to her, Thomas said, until she received a text from Morgan saying she was suspended for a few days.

“It didn’t even enter my mind that he would have been in any kind of danger because she never would have allowed that,” Thomas said.

Since then, the community has rallied around Morgan. A petition that says Morgan lost her job over the kitten rescue has garnered more than 11,000 signatures and attracted national media coverage from outlets like People magazine. Even the advocacy organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, has weighed in.

“We really saw an act of kindness and empathy that really shouldn’t be punished or discouraged,” Colin Henstock, PETA’s associate director, said in an interview. “We hope that our outreach to the school board will help Ms. Morgan be reinstated and that students be sent the right message about helping others in need.”

The animal advocacy group sent a letter to members of the Harford County Board of Education this week, urging them to return Morgan to her bus routes since “student safety and compassion are not rival electives.”

Morgan worked for Cleary’s Transportation Co., a company that contracts with the school system. A person who answered the phone for the company on Tuesday said Morgan no longer worked there.

Morgan could not be reached for comment.

Jillian Lader, a spokesperson for Harford County Public Schools, said in a statement that decisions regarding certification or decertification for bus drivers and attendants are made after carefully reviewing all relevant information and “are not always based on a single factor but often involve consideration of multiple circumstances and requirements.”

Lauren Paige, president of the school board, said in a statement that she recognizes the desire to help an animal. However, “allowing a student to exit a school bus and enter a roadway to retrieve an unfamiliar animal raises legitimate safety concerns. Even on a rural road with limited traffic, conditions can change quickly, and our safety rules and regulations exist to protect students in unpredictable situations.”

Alex, a fifth grader, said he was the first person Morgan picked up on Sept. 30.

“Come look. I saw a kitten in the middle of the road,” he recalled Morgan telling him before the next stop.

It was the size of a bag of Party Mix, he said.

He later told his mom the stop sign was signaled and no traffic was coming when he hopped off the bus to rescue the animal.

“It’s just common sense to help the kitten,” said Alex, who lives with a dog, a cat and a leopard gecko. “I know the kitten was just, like, terrified.”

Morgan, known to her students as Ms. Cynthia, had been Alex’s bus driver for most of his elementary career. She’s a gift-giver to the students and once bought Alex a Ring Pop, he said.

Julie Long, who started the petition to reinstate Morgan, said her 8-year-old grandson rode that bus. She called Morgan a “down-to-earth, real person,” another grandmother to her grandkids and a friend. Long has raised over $3,000 through a GoFundMe and plans to give the money to Morgan so she can pay her bills, she said.

“As a parent who has personally witnessed her commitment, I am starting this petition to ask for her immediate reinstatement,” she wrote.

If it were her grandchildren retrieving the cat, Long said in an interview, she wouldn’t have been worried. She said the rural road isn’t dangerous and “sometimes, you just got to do what’s right at the moment.”

Thomas said she’s happy so many people are applauding her son and Morgan for doing the right thing. The family is still deciding whether to adopt the kitten, who is with a foster family. She got the name Brookie for her resemblance to a brownie and a cookie.

If Alex convinces his dad to gift him a new pet for his 11th birthday next month, Brookie’s name will change to either Percy, after the fictional character Percy Jackson, or Devourer of Universes.

“It’s a joke,” Alex said. “She’s the very opposite of that.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.