CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) – It was finally a normal day of school for students with no threats reported in Massachusetts for the first time this week.

In the first three days of this school week, there have been more than a dozen across the state. Police were called and quickly accessed each one making sure every call was a hoax. Massachusetts State Police said Tuesday they believe many of them are connected.

These kinds of incidents cost money. In fact, for one incident in Rochester, NY the police department had to pay $15,000 for just one call, $25,000 for Denver, CO when they had to respond to an incident in 2015.

“It exhausts our resources and I’m sure it exhausts the nerves of the parents and the kids,” said Springfield Police Superintendent Cheryl Clapprood.

Intelligence experts also estimate swatting calls have increased over the past decade. A former FBI agent told the Anti-Defamation League they had more than doubled between 2011 and 2019.

Joan Valentino from Chicopee feels for the children who are going through this and is glad she doesn’t have children in school now, “I feel bad for those kids because they’re going to feel bad everyday. They don’t know when something’s going to happen or not happen and it’s kind of hard to live that way.”

The other challenge with these kinds of threats is that they can be incredibly hard to track down.