When life gets tough, you should always be able to reach out to your school and receive the support you need to get you through it. But sometimes that doesn’t always happen at other schools.

That was the problem that two of our Primavera students faced at their old school. Although they are now getting ready to graduate, their life wasn’t always so simple. Read on to see the inspiring love story of Mariah Sellers and Alex Garbareno.

Alex Garbareno & Mariah Sellers, seniors at Primavera

Alex and Mariah first met in the state of Washington. The two were introduced by mutual friends at a Boys & Girls Club where they instantly connected, as Alex said.

“When I first met her (and of course, she’s still nice now), but I paid a lot of attention to her because she was nice and laughed at my jokes,” said Alex.

When Mariah was young, she was left without parents and passed from one foster home to another. Without a permanent home of her own, Mariah oftentimes felt alone and unable to get attached to anyone, because she never knew how long she had before it was time to leave again.

“It was stressful because I always moved, so I didn’t get the best grades and I didn’t really have any friends. I never got to get to know anyone,” said Mariah.

Mariah got to spend six months with Alex, until she was forced once again to move to another foster care home.

A few years later, Mariah turned 18 and decided to leave foster care, switching schools once more. She was at a completely new school with new people, nothing that she wasn’t used to at this point. But Mariah did know one person in her new school: Alex. It just so happened that Alex had moved awhile back into the same school. Reunited again, it didn’t take long before the two started to date.

Once again, Alex and Mariah’s relationship saw trouble when Alex’s family had to move to Arizona. But this time, Alex wasn’t ready to up and leave Mariah. That’s when his father decided to take Mariah in and let her come to Arizona with them, giving her the family she never had.

“I didn’t have any family to rely on, so when I got out of foster care, I was completely on my own. When Alex’s family said, ‘You can live with us,’ I was so happy to have a home,” Mariah said. “And ever since then, I lived over here.”

During that time, however, Alex suffered through many illnesses. Because of hospitalizations, doctors visits and frequently not feeling well, Alex started to fall behind in school. Having moved around to different foster care homes so much, Mariah also found herself behind on credits.

When they moved to Arizona, public schools told Alex and Mariah they were too old to attend public high school. Feeling disappointed and discouraged, Alex and Mariah thought a GED was their only choice. Then, just three weeks after moving to Arizona, 19-year-old Mariah found out what she called shocking, but exciting news: They were pregnant.

“I was shocked (when I found out). I mean, I was happy, but I was shocked,” said Mariah. “We decided to go back to school before we found out we were pregnant, but after, we knew we wanted to get on our feet more. We were kind of disappointed in ourselves because we stopped school for awhile and we just wanted to feel better about ourselves.”

That’s when Alex and Mariah started looking for alternative options and found Primavera Online High School. With the news of the baby, the two got enrolled right away. Mariah said that having the two courses every six weeks was one of the best ways for her to get better grades and catch up on credits.

“It is less stressful. You’re only focusing on two classes every six weeks, and usually it’s one core class and one alternative,” Mariah said. “I think Primavera really hit the spot there. It’s the only school that I’d recommend for anybody. It allowed us to go back to school, and catch up on our own time.”

Alex has also been able to quickly catch up on credits.

“Because of my medical issues, I couldn’t attend regular high school so I missed a lot and got pretty far behind,” said Alex. “But Primavera is allowing me to catch up pretty quickly.”

With their now 9-month-old baby, Mariah and Alex find balancing life with their son and doing schoolwork to be challenging at times. However, Primavera has guidance counselors and teachers who care about them and personally work with them, as Mariah said.

“My guidance counselor is with me every step of the way,” said Mariah. “I can call her whenever I need help with catching up or staying focused and they’ll give me advice on what to do. From there, I’ll walk back to that laptop and try all of the advice she gave me and before I know it, I’m already caught up.”

After Primavera, Mariah wants to become a midwife. Alex also wants to go to college and study the technical field.

“I want to go into the IT field like my dad. My dad and I work on computers together. He works at Microsoft Tech; I want to do that too,” Alex said.

Mariah and Alex are both set to get their diplomas at the end of the school year, and we couldn’t be more proud of their decision to get an education for their family.

“I think Primavera can be very helpful to many people in a wide variety of situations and can help them succeed even if they previously thought they couldn’t. It can allow them to get a high school diploma and get good grades, it’s interactive with your teachers and it’s very helpful to get through the classes because you have an unlimited amount of resources helping you get through them.”
-Alex Garbareno, senior at Primavera

  • What do you think of Alex and Mariah’s story? Share with us in the comments below!