NATCHEZ &045;This May, Dontrell Guy will be able to choose which high school is listed on her diploma.

But it’s just October, and the New Orleans native already has her mind made up.

&8221;I’d prefer to have a Natchez High School diploma,&8220; 17-year-old Dontrell said. &8221;I wouldn’t mind giving credit to Frederick Douglass (High School), but if I’m going to graduate from here, I want a diploma from here.&8220;

The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education made a decision last month to allow Louisiana students displaced by Katrina to receive diplomas from their home schools anyway.

But for Dontrell, a NHS student since the school reopened after Katrina, Natchez is the new home.

After several weeks of living in a crowded house with relatives, Dontrell and her parents are moving out and into their own Natchez home sometime this month.

Life isn’t so settled yet for classmate Donnea Collins though.

This was supposed to be her senior year at McDonogh No. 35 Senior High School in New Orleans, where she’d be a third-year cheerleader.

Instead, she’s living at the Days Inn and enrolled at NHS too late for cheerleader tryouts.

&8221;I couldn’t be in the yearbook like I wanted to. I couldn’t be a cheerleader like I wanted to. The parties and stuff, I couldn’t go to,&8220; she said. &8221;I was really looking forward to my senior year.&8220;

Now her mother drives to Baton Rouge every day looking for an apartment, to no avail.

Donnea misses her friends and her brothers, who went to Texas with her dad, but she says NHS has been very welcoming.

&8221;I went to the game last week and the dance,&8220; she said. &8221;I’m trying to make it as fun as possible.&8220;

And all the while, Donnea is questioning her future, something that was pre-planned before Katrina.

&8221;I’ve always wanted to be a nurse,&8220; she said. &8221;My aunt and grandmother are nurses. But they had to stay behind with the patients (when Katrina hit), and my aunt told me how she was traumatized.

&8221;In her face, she was tired, was exhausted from it.&8220;

Now her grandmother is considering retirement, and Donnea is considering a new career.

&8221;I’m just confused right now,&8220; she said. &8221;I’m not sure what I really want to do.&8220;

In the meantime, there’s class work to do and the last few electives to get in for both girls. Course offerings at Natchez High aren’t all that different from New Orleans, they said, with the exception of Mississippi Studies.

&8221;We didn’t learn about our city or state (in New Orleans),&8220; Dontrell said. &8221;Now I’ve learned about counties, the state capitol, William Johnson and the Choctaw.&8220;

Both girls have abbreviated schedules because they are seniors, and they share a dance class &045; not the first time their paths have crossed in life.

&8221;She walked in the class, and I was just like, she looks so familiar,&8220; Dontrell said of Donnea. &8221;We hadn’t seen each other since elementary school.&8220;

Though they don’t know how long they’ll be in the same school together again, the girls are both trying to make the best of the situation.

&8221;It was God’s will and God’s doing,&8220; Dontrell said. &8221;I couldn’t stop that. I was hurt because I had to leave school behind, but I had to do what I had to do.&8220;