GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) —Although she is a senior, this is the first year Sinclaire Bice has attended Grand Rapids Catholic Central High School.

And yet, she still made enough new friends and connections to win homecoming queen last week. The AMDG Inclusion Program has helped her build those relationships and was one of the reasons her parents, Chad and Victoria Bice, decided to send her there.

Sinclaire Bice has Down syndrome and has typically been paired with adult aids in more traditional school programs.

“The (AMDG Inclusion) program allows more of an interaction between the students and her the ability to have a peer guide your movements throughout the day and give you some social cues or accept you into their lunch table and hang out with you near your locker between classes, that becomes more inclusionary. She learns from them, and then they are also learning from her, that she is just another girl in school with them, while she may look a little different, sound a little different, or act a little different,” Victoria Bice said.

Sinclaire Bice said, “my friends voted for me.” She felt “so happy” and “excited” when she learned the news. She said she got to wear three dresses for the three events related to homecoming Court.

Victoria Bice described the whole experience as “heartwarming.”

“It’s just an incredible honor to know that the students of Catholic Central are so caring and wonderful and have taken Sinclaire into their hearts, and she’s one of them,” she said.

Although the crown makes Sinclaire Bice stand out as queen, she and her parents are happiest in how it shows she fits in.