State and local officials are slowly untangling complicated webs of accountability, testing, and graduation policies, hoping to give thousands of students displaced by Hurricane Katrina a better handle on their academic standing. While officials in Texas, Tennessee, and Alabama offered some guidance to such students, school leaders in storm-ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi continued to wait for responses to their requests for flexibility in meeting some federal requirements. Mississippi state schools chief, Hank M. Bounds, pressed his case in Washington with members of Congress and officials at the U.S. Department of Education. His state has asked that districts battered by Katrina and those enrolling large numbers of displaced students be exempted this school year from the No Child Left Behind Act's rules on adequate yearly progress. Cecil J. Picard, the state superintendent in Louisiana, has made a similar request. While federal officials deliberate over how they will handle federal rules, state officials are addressing questions about how to assimilate large numbers of students who have been held to different standards and coursework requirements in their home states.