A couple of percentage points may not seem like much, but every slip in the graduation rate means fewer students getting a timely start to their careers or college life.

That’s why it concerned us to read that graduation rates remained deflated at Northeast Michigan schools amid the coronavirus pandemic, dropping from 86.5% in spring 2019, before the pandemic hit, to 86% in 2020 and 83% last spring.

Everyday stressors at home can make it hard for some students to succeed, despite teachers’ best efforts.

The stressors of the pandemic — from the loss of loved ones to parents’ job losses to disruptions to classroom life as students were sent home to learn online during outbreaks — only exacerbated such problems and made them more widespread.

Teachers have their work cut out for them to make sure students can stay focused and on task to graduate on time.

They’ve always needed help from parents to make sure kids are doing their homework and studying.

That’s doubly true now in the pandemic.

On-time graduation starts early. By the time students hit fourth grade — usually about 9 years old — they’re halfway to adulthood and graduation. By that time, they have to have strong reading skills to make sure they can follow along with assignments in every subject and keep their grades up.

So we urge parents of students of any age to give teachers a hand, to make sure we as adults do all we can to keep stresses away from our kiddos, and to keep them on task and focused on their homework so they make the progress they need to make to get that diploma on time.