First day, with worry

My worries on this first day of first grade were far greater than any of Sam's. He was happy to have the teacher all the kids seem to prize, the one who runs the Chess Club and shakes each kid's hand every morning and every afternoon. But almost all the kids from his kindergarten class are together in a different room. His two closest buddies are in there, and I know how he already felt a little left out in that trio since the other two are so close. Probably two thirds of his old class is still together. It is not lost on me that those kids are the higher-performing ones in their grade and I wonder why Sam got left out, when I know from his summer program that he is reading on a 3rd grade level and was in the very small kindergarten group doing 2nd grade math last year. I am sensitive to him being placed in lower-performing groups because of his "special ed" label, though part of the reason he qualified for an IEP in the first place was because of the discrepancy between his high IQ and his "just above average" performance. I trust this school and these teachers and keep telling myself to just get over it. I hope his little friends from last year don't forget him and that he is happy in his class. All I know so far is that his day was the standard "great" and that he is sitting next to Madison, a very sweet girl from his class last year who looks eerily like him.

I suppose I will worry about something no matter what, so this is pretty small potatoes, even compared to the worries I had the last two Septembers.