Kitten-Rescuing Bus Driver Gets PETA Backing as Reinstatement Push Grows

For Immediate Release:
October 13, 2026

Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382

With more than 9,000 people now backing a petition to reinstate longtime school bus driver Cynthia Morgan, PETA joined the push today, sending a letter urging the Board of Education of Harford County to return her to her North Harford Elementary School route. According to reports, Morgan was fired after she stopped on rural Heaps School Road with one student aboard and allowed the 10-year-old to retrieve a kitten in distress from the roadside. Morgan, who had driven students for 11 years, was removed from the route after the rescue.

PETA notes that a kitten left stranded beside the road risks being run over by a car, going hungry or thirsty, suffering from exposure, or being attacked by predators.

“A child who stops to help a kitten in danger is showing exactly the compassion and respect for others that schools should nurture,” says PETA Senior Vice President Colleen O’Brien. “Kindness should be encouraged, not punished, and PETA is calling on the school board to reinstate Morgan and send students the right message about helping others in need.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.

PETA’s letter to the Board of Education of Harford County follows.

October 13, 2026

Lauren Paige, President

Wade A. Sewell, Vice President

Members of the Board of Education of Harford County

Dear Ms. Paige, Mr. Sewell, and Members of the Board:

I am writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and our members and supporters in Maryland to urge the Board of Education of Harford County to review the removal of longtime school bus driver Cynthia Morgan from her North Harford Elementary School route. By allowing a student to rescue a kitten in distress, she demonstrated precisely the compassion that schools should seek to nurture.

Harford County Public Schools may have just taught students an unexpected lesson: When you see a vulnerable being in danger, compassion is commendable—unless it delays the bus.

According to news reports, Ms. Morgan stopped on a rural, low-traffic road and allowed the only student aboard to retrieve a tiny kitten the child had spotted on the roadside. Left alone beside a road, the kitten faced obvious and immediate dangers—from passing vehicles and exposure to injury, hunger, dehydration, and predators. Ms. Morgan validated the concern of a student acting out of kindness and compassion for someone who needed help.

Schools routinely say they want students to become caring, engaged citizens. It would be a peculiar civics lesson indeed to punish the adult who allowed a child to act on those values—and to suggest that looking away would have been the better option.

We urge the Board to review this matter promptly and allow Ms. Morgan to return to her route. Student safety and compassion are not rival electives. Harford County’s children deserve adults who can model both.

Sincerely,

Allison Fandl

Manager of Special Projects

Cruelty Investigations Department | PETA