Last Wednesday, several students released 72,000 ladybugs inside Maryland’s Chopticon High School as their class’ senior prank, a practical joke that sounds unfair to the ladybugs (and also just not very funny?).

Even more not very funny, however, is the fact that seven of those students now face charges ranging from disruption of school activities to fourth-degree burglary, having broken into the school at 3:30 a.m. to release the beetles.

“They set the burglary alarm off and the police did respond and we arrived there,” a spokesperson for the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office told WTTG. “Then it takes it to a different level and we certainly don’t want to see anybody get hurt.”

Classmates, however, disagreed with the decision to punish the pranksters, holding a protest Tuesday morning.

“Everybody got a good laugh out of it,” student Kyle Fisher told WUSA9, “I don’t really see what the big deal is about it.”

According to The Washington Post, it took janitors several hours to vacuum up the bugs, which had been ordered online.

[Image via WTTG]