In the middle of September, science teacher Bill Kelly’s classes welcomed an unusual guest. Kelly adopted a ferret who now calls the classroom home.

The ferret, Harold, came from a student who got herself into a tough situation.

“I actually got [Harold] without my mom knowing,” sophomore Michaela Durner, the original owner of Harold, said. “So [my mom] found him one day and was like ‘Um, no, this can not be here. You need to get rid of him.’ ”

Adopting Harold also seemed beneficial to Kelly because he thought he could create a unique learning experience for his students.

“When I told [Durner] that I could take [Harold], I kind of took it as like a therapy-type dog, where the dog interacts with the students and the students interact with the dog,” Kelly said. “This isn’t a dog, but it gives the kids a chance to interact with an animal.”

Kelly decided to take a new approach to having a classroom pet. Rather than staying cooped up in a cage, Harold was given freedom to roam around Kelly’s room during class.

“Most of the time, he runs around in the class for a couple of hours and then goes to bed and sleeps for a lot of the day,” Kelly said. “He’s really not a pain, and the kids have gotten pretty used to him, so they deal with him crawling over their backpacks or feet.”

Surprisingly, Kelly did not have to adapt his classroom for Harold’s arrival. According to Kelly, his room was already prepared.

“[My classroom was] always kind of set up to have a critter in the class either in a cage or running around,” Kelly said.

The only changes that needed to be made with Harold’s presence came from the students.

“The kids had to adapt so that they would see something running around and it wouldn’t surprise them,” Kelly said. “And [the students] that keep their backpacks on the floor had to remember to zip it because [Harold] likes to crawl into things.”

Overall, having Harold in the classroom has served as a constructive experience for both Kelly and his students, Kelly said.

“I think it’s been a positive influence and a positive [experience] for the kids to have him in the classroom,” Kelly said. “[Harold’s presence] is kind of calming, and I think the more students can be exposed to things that aren’t normal for them the more appreciative they’re going to be of life in general.”

Some students also said they enjoy spending their class time with Harold.

“I just like to hold him all day,” junior Shelby Liska said.

Despite general positive attitudes toward Harold, administrators will not allow Kelly to keep him in his class.

“[Administration] didn’t think that [Harold] had any educational value,” Kelly said. “It kind of surprised me that he became an issue at all.”

The decision was upsetting news for Kelly and his students.

“I’m disappointed we maybe couldn’t have had a trial and error and see how things went [with Harold],” Kelly said. “It’s not like we don’t have other things in the classroom that we can call our pets, but fish and plants are a little bit different than having an actual furry animal running around that you can actually interact with.”

Kelly’s students are also not fond of the decision.

“I think it’s not fair,” Liska said. “Mr. Kelly is taking care of him, and most kids are learning how to take care of pets.”

Now that Harold’s stay has been terminated, Kelly has been on the search for a new place for him to call home.

“Different kids have expressed interest in wishing they had a ferret,” Kelly said. “So I’ve visited with them to see if their parents would be agreeable to having a pet.”

Although his stay has been short, Kelly has bonded with Harold and shared several fun moments with him.

“[Some of our best moments are] when I take him out, just watching him have fun around the classroom just being a kid,” Kelly said. “I get to see him one on one like that and he’s always excited to see me, at least I think he is because he runs around like an idiot.”

Kelly’s favorite moments, however, have been seeing his students’ experiences with Harold.

“I think the best part would be seeing the expressions and the smiles and the laughs of the kids in the classroom when he’s doing stupid things, and how the kids interact with him,” Kelly said. “That to me is a pretty rewarding thing to see.”