we just finished testing this week. We had it Monday through Thursday and minimum days everyday. Our school day ended by 12:15, which was nice because I actually was able to get some stuff done in the afternoon.
My group of students that I had for testing were typically done after about an hour and fifteen minutes, which left about an hour and half of me trying to figure out what to do with them. I'm just glad it's over for this year.
I'll keep my fingers crossed that your school does well on these tests!
Instead of tearing through it in four days, my school drags it out for two entire weeks. We only test until 11am, and then we run through our regular schedule with 30-minute periods. Our regular 40-minute periods are too short as it is; what kind of lesson am I supposed to pull off in 30 minutes? In the meantime, we are doing this crazy schedule for 10 days of school instruction. Will the madness ever end?
I thought it was just my school that did this. Our school is forced to schedule full days with 26 minute classes in the morning and testing in the afternoon. Typically the 9th graders finish in about an hour or so. That leaves them over an hour to sit. The problem is that the testing sites are set up alphabetically so some students are mine, some are not. That's when the trouble starts. Saying that ninth graders don't do well when they aren't occupied is an understatement. We don't know how our testing went yet. Good luck on yours. I hope you crawl out of the pit!
Lucky for us, our testing takes place in the fall. Think about it, the fourth grade test for our fourth graders takes place in the fall. Shouldn't this really be called the third grade test? Our fourth grade teachers spend the beginning of the year doing a ton of test prep and other district required assessments. The beginning of the year is stressful enough, but cramming the tests in so early is crazy.
Oh yeah, the results come in April!
Why is it so hard for college-educated people to devise a rational, intelligent testing schedule? We've been giving standardized tests here in California since before I was in high school, although I grant not as many as now--have we learned nothing in all those decades about how to schedule well?
Ugh!
At my high school, the 10th graders come in at the regular school time - 7:24 am. The rest of the school is on a three-hour delay. Not very productive for the rest of us that don't teach 10th graders and have an abbreviated schedule for the rest of the day due to this crazy testing.
We had one week in March, two weeks in May, and another week in June for state testing. I'm already tested out! 
We just found out this past week that because of the way we scheduled our testing this year (and in years past, but who's counting), we're under on instructional minutes. We have to come up with about 860 more minutes of student butt-in-chair time. And our school is one of the less-screwed-up; one of our schools has to make up about 1800 minutes, so they're going to stay open 4 extra days and pay a few teachers about $25/hr to be there (on days when some would be working in their rooms for free anyway) in case a few students show up.
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