Statewide Testing Schedules: Why Quality Schedules Matter
If you’ve ever built a testing schedule, you know it’s not just about blocking off time on a calendar. It’s a balancing act of logistics, staffing, device access, accommodations, and student needs—on top of everything else already happening in a school.
But here’s the truth: how we schedule statewide testing has a bigger impact than most people realize.
Testing schedules quietly influence student stress, shape teacher attitudes, and even affect the validity of the test results we rely on. A poorly planned schedule doesn’t just make test week harder, it undermines the very thing we’re trying to do: gather meaningful information about student learning.
Let’s talk about why this matters—and what we can do about it.
The Invisible Impact of a Testing Schedule
Students (and teachers) feel the impact of testing schedules before the first day of testing.
If your schedule crams back-to-back sessions into one long testing block, students may experience fatigue before they’ve even reached the end of the first day of testing. Spread testing out over multiple weeks with inconsistent timing? That creates confusion and eats away at instructional time.
When a test that takes 45 minutes (or less) for the vast majority of students is scheduled for two full hours, what message does that send? Some students might assume they’re “supposed” to take longer and second-guess their answers. Others may sit and make no progress because they feel like they have forever to finish. Still others will still rush just to get it over with, then have way too much time to wait. Any which way, the mismatch between the actual demands of the test and the time we dedicate to it can distort both performance and perception.
These subtle dynamics affect not just scores, but student confidence, teacher buy-in, and the schoolwide climate around assessment.
Over-allocating and Under-allocating Time: The Wrong Signals
When it comes to testing, more time isn’t always better—and less time doesn’t automatically make testing more humane. Both extremes send unintentional messages about what assessment is and how it should feel.
Over-allocating: A More Common (and More Damaging) Mistake
Since many states have transitioned to untimed statewide assessments, over-allocation of time in testing schedules has quietly become widespread and problematic. In the effort to “protect” students’ time or ensure no one feels rushed, many schools go too far—blocking off 90 minutes, two hours, or even entire mornings for test segments that 85% of students finish in 40 minutes or less**.
This does far more harm than good.
Over-allocation sends a powerful message: that the test is so difficult and high-stakes it must be treated like an academic marathon. For students who finish early, it becomes a test of endurance, not knowledge. Quiet stalling, aimless clicking or flipping of pages, or zoning out becomes the norm—especially in the longest sessions. When students are stuck in their seats with nothing to do for extended periods, classroom management becomes a very real challenge.
Let’s be clear: untimed doesn’t mean unlimited.
Untimed means students should be given adequate time to show what they know—not that testing should take as long as possible.
Under-allocating: A Less Common but Real Risk
Under-allocation of time in testing schedules comes with its own set of problems, especially if students are not given enough time to log in, settle, and work through questions that require deeper thinking. This is especially true for multi-step items, writing prompts, or performance tasks, which are not designed to be rushed.
Some schools have tried squeezing test sessions (and more often, make-up sessions) into short periods between specials or during shortened class blocks, which can backfire. If students feel like the clock is their enemy before they even get logged in, you’re unlikely to get data that truly reflects what they know.
So What’s the Right Approach?
The key is intentional scheduling, grounded in actual test duration data and a realistic understanding of your students. If your administration guidelines provide 85th percentile completion times for each grade or test section, use it—but remember what that means: 85% of students finish in that time or less. That’s a ceiling, not a floor.
Then, add what only educators can add: knowledge of the cohort.
Every class has its own temperament.
Are they generally calm and focused, or rowdy and resistant to structure?
Do they settle quickly, or need more warm-up time to transition into serious thinking?
From my professional experience, when factoring in log-in to log-out time for online tests, early grades of 3 and 4 typically do best with sessions of 25–35 minutes, while high school students handle blocks of 35–60 minutes. Grades in between generally fall somewhere within that range. After this much focused time, students need at least a whole-group short break of around 15 minutes. Depending on the class and the task, they may be ready to return to testing—or may need to shift to a completely different activity.
Longer than that? You risk disengagement, and that’s when students start quietly spiraling into daydreaming—or worse, distracting their peers.
Bottom line: One size doesn’t fit all.
The most effective testing schedules strike a balance—respecting students’ time, supporting their focus, and protecting instructional minutes. It’s not about more or less time. It’s about the right time for the right students with the right support in place. And if after the first few days of testing, the schedule is not working, have some flexibility built in, but more on that in a future post.
Looking Through the Compassionate Assessment Framework Lens
Two key components of the Compassionate Assessment Framework (CAF) apply here:
Assessment Environment
The physical, emotional, and procedural conditions in which assessments take place matter. Schedules that honor time, space, and transitions contribute to a calm, focused environment. Those that create chaos or pressure? Not so much.
Ask yourself:
Does the schedule make sense from a student’s point of view?
Does it leverage routines and follow patterns that students are already accustomed?
Have you built in natural breaks, transition support, and opportunities to clearly communicate (and reinforce) expectations?
Does the schedule align with how we’ve described to students what they can expect?
Student Attitudes & Beliefs
The schedule you create influences how students feel about testing. That feeling carries into their effort, persistence, and trust in the process.
Ask yourself:
Are students aware of the purpose of each test session?
What messages are students receiving (explicitly or implicitly) about how long a “good” test-taker should take?
Do early finishers feel confident in their responses, or do they feel unsure if they “finished too soon”?
Are students aware that needing more time doesn’t mean they’re behind—and that persistence is a strength?
How do you support students in building stamina for focused thinking within appropriate time frames?
These aren’t just procedural questions—they shape how students interpret time, effort, and fairness during testing. When students understand the why behind the schedule, the pacing, and the boundaries of the testing environment, they’re more likely to approach the experience with confidence and focus instead of confusion or resistance. Empowering students with this clarity builds trust—and that trust shapes how they show up.
Next Steps: Build Better Schedules with Purpose
If this post got your wheels turning, good—there’s more where that came from.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be unpacking:
Why “what we’ve always done” may be hurting more than helping
How to build in flexibly while mitigating loss of instruction
What to reflect on after testing ends to build a better schedule next year
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** Time estimates are typically provided by your state department of education. Don’t know where to look? Reach out to us and we’ll help you!
