It’s tough to take a hard look at a place that occupies a soft spot in the heart. A school is such a place, a home away from home to many families. So the prospect of a neighborhood school closing has to bring no small measure of pain to those affected.

Queen Liliuokalani Elementary School is the latest to find itself under the state Department of Education microscope. It was not picked at random. DOE rules require a school consolidation to be considered if at least one of three criteria is met:

» At least a third of the facilities requires replacing or improving to meet standards.

» A third or more of the available classrooms are in excess of needs.

» Enrollment decline and the staff reductions that result reduces the capability of the school to provide the same educational opportunities offered at other schools, assuming that adjoining schools can accommodate the extra students.

Clearly, declining enrollment drives most of the studies to date, resulting in the closure of Wailupe Valley and Keanae schools. Population long since has shifted westward on Oahu and away from plantation and farm communities (Keanae was a one-room school), so the state has to redeploy its resources where they are most needed. School consolidation is a necessity because of this reality.

What’s lost and difficult to convey in all of this, unfortunately, is the big picture. The DOE could have done a better job of coordinating its plans in the Wailupe instance. The closure decision there, and the return of the property to the city, was made with little notice to city officials. As a result, the city hasn’t resolved disposition of the campus, which still sits abandoned.

The public is lacking a broader perspective, too. Each study is viewed in isolation, and so school communities evaluate the plan only through the lens of their own experience, in which the loss of the familiar tends to swamp any other consideration.

In some cases, there are strong arguments to be made against closures. Interim Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi has weighed in on one of these: Haleiwa Elementary School’s closure would disperse too many students for the neighboring school to handle without sending all the sixth-graders to the middle school. Parents voiced a rational concern about that, so Matayoshi’s recommendation against consolidation makes sense.

But at Liliuokalani, the reasons for closure have a firmer basis. According to the draft study, the students would have access to a wider range of programs. Waialae School is 210 students under capacity and should be able to take in many of Liliuokalani’s 127 kids; two other schools, Kahala and Liholiho, also have plenty of room.

And the presumption that a smaller school is better may not be borne out in this case. Although Liliuokalani is meeting No Child Left Behind benchmarks, its scores are lower than other, larger schools in the complex.

Although a too-large classroom is to be avoided, the smallest classes aren’t necessarily the best. The aim should be to maintain the order and attention to students, rather than preserve a small school for its size alone.

On the upside, a law passed this year requires the DOE to notify charter schools planners of the availability of school property, which should help the effective use of campus facilities to be carried out in more coordinated fashion.

In Kaimuki, the Liliuokalani school community will have a chance to raise its voice in a public hearing, to be scheduled once the school board deems the study complete in coming weeks. And while the school’s admirable history — celebrating its 99th anniversary after being dedicated by its royal namesake — adds poignancy to the decision, the focus must remain on how today’s children are best served. Scattering DOE resources too thinly is not an efficient way to run the public schools, and it may not be the best strategy for the students, either.