diff --git a/dev/clean.sh b/dev/clean.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..0d86680e8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/dev/clean.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+#
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+# software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+# KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+# specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+#
+
+# This cleans up the project by removing build artifacts and other generated files.
+
+# Function to remove a directory and print the action
+remove_dir() {
+    if [ -d "$1" ]; then
+        echo "Removing directory: $1"
+        rm -rf "$1"
+    fi
+}
+
+# Function to remove a file and print the action
+remove_file() {
+    if [ -f "$1" ]; then
+        echo "Removing file: $1"
+        rm -f "$1"
+    fi
+}
+
+# Remove .pytest_cache directory
+remove_dir .pytest_cache/
+
+# Remove target directory
+remove_dir target/
+
+# Remove any __pycache__ directories
+find python/ -type d -name "__pycache__" -print | while read -r dir; do
+    remove_dir "$dir"
+done
+
+# Remove pytest-coverage.lcov file
+# remove_file .coverage
+# remove_file pytest-coverage.lcov
+
+# Remove rust-coverage.lcov file
+# remove_file rust-coverage.lcov
+
+# Remove pyo3 files
+find python/ -type f -name '_internal.*.so' -print | while read -r file; do
+    remove_file "$file"
+done
+
+echo "Cleanup complete."
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/dev/python_lint.sh b/dev/python_lint.sh
index 3bc67fb12..29f0d4833 100755
--- a/dev/python_lint.sh
+++ b/dev/python_lint.sh
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-#!/bin/bash
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
 
 # Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
 # or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
diff --git a/dev/release/README.md b/dev/release/README.md
index 93c2f97b9..49fd9de2d 100644
--- a/dev/release/README.md
+++ b/dev/release/README.md
@@ -159,10 +159,29 @@ Send the email to start the vote.
 
 ## Verifying a Release
 
-Install the release from testpypi:
+Running the unit tests against a testpypi release candidate:
 
 ```bash
-pip install --extra-index-url https://test.pypi.org/simple/ datafusion==0.7.0
+# clone a fresh repo
+git clone https://github.com/apache/datafusion-python.git
+cd datafusion-python
+
+# checkout the release commit
+git fetch --tags
+git checkout 40.0.0-rc1
+
+# create the env
+python3 -m venv venv
+source venv/bin/activate
+
+# install release candidate
+pip install --extra-index-url https://test.pypi.org/simple/ datafusion==40.0.0
+
+# only dep needed to run tests is pytest
+pip install pytest
+
+# run the tests
+pytest --import-mode=importlib python/tests
 ```
 
 Try running one of the examples from the top-level README, or write some custom Python code to query some available
diff --git a/dev/release/verify-release-candidate.sh b/dev/release/verify-release-candidate.sh
index 14c0baee8..3879a267f 100755
--- a/dev/release/verify-release-candidate.sh
+++ b/dev/release/verify-release-candidate.sh
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-#!/bin/bash
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
 #
 # Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
 # or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
diff --git a/dev/rust_lint.sh b/dev/rust_lint.sh
index b1285cbc3..eeb9e2302 100755
--- a/dev/rust_lint.sh
+++ b/dev/rust_lint.sh
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-#!/bin/bash
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
 
 # Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
 # or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
diff --git a/docs/build.sh b/docs/build.sh
index 7e8bb0b54..5afe85812 100755
--- a/docs/build.sh
+++ b/docs/build.sh
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-#!/bin/bash
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
 #
 # Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
 # or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 4e03ce8db..6e10333a0 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@ max-doc-length = 88
 
 # Disable docstring checking for these directories
 [tool.ruff.lint.per-file-ignores]
-"python/datafusion/tests/*" = ["D"]
+"python/tests/*" = ["D"]
 "examples/*" = ["D", "W505"]
 "dev/*" = ["D"]
 "benchmarks/*" = ["D", "F"]
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/__init__.py b/python/tests/__init__.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/__init__.py
rename to python/tests/__init__.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/conftest.py b/python/tests/conftest.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/conftest.py
rename to python/tests/conftest.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/data_test_context/data.json b/python/tests/data_test_context/data.json
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/data_test_context/data.json
rename to python/tests/data_test_context/data.json
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/generic.py b/python/tests/generic.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/generic.py
rename to python/tests/generic.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_aggregation.py b/python/tests/test_aggregation.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_aggregation.py
rename to python/tests/test_aggregation.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_catalog.py b/python/tests/test_catalog.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_catalog.py
rename to python/tests/test_catalog.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_config.py b/python/tests/test_config.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_config.py
rename to python/tests/test_config.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_context.py b/python/tests/test_context.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_context.py
rename to python/tests/test_context.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_dataframe.py b/python/tests/test_dataframe.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_dataframe.py
rename to python/tests/test_dataframe.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_expr.py b/python/tests/test_expr.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_expr.py
rename to python/tests/test_expr.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_functions.py b/python/tests/test_functions.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_functions.py
rename to python/tests/test_functions.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_imports.py b/python/tests/test_imports.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_imports.py
rename to python/tests/test_imports.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_indexing.py b/python/tests/test_indexing.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_indexing.py
rename to python/tests/test_indexing.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_input.py b/python/tests/test_input.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_input.py
rename to python/tests/test_input.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_sql.py b/python/tests/test_sql.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_sql.py
rename to python/tests/test_sql.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_store.py b/python/tests/test_store.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_store.py
rename to python/tests/test_store.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_substrait.py b/python/tests/test_substrait.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_substrait.py
rename to python/tests/test_substrait.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_udaf.py b/python/tests/test_udaf.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_udaf.py
rename to python/tests/test_udaf.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_udwf.py b/python/tests/test_udwf.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_udwf.py
rename to python/tests/test_udwf.py
diff --git a/python/datafusion/tests/test_wrapper_coverage.py b/python/tests/test_wrapper_coverage.py
similarity index 100%
rename from python/datafusion/tests/test_wrapper_coverage.py
rename to python/tests/test_wrapper_coverage.py