Hawaii island students who were reassigned last fall to new schools because of the threat of the lava flow in lower Puna will return to their former schools for the upcoming 2015-16 school year, the state Department of Education said Monday.

The DOE in October had closed Keone­poko Elementary School when the Kilauea lava flow was on a path toward Pahoa town. A temporary facility was built at Keaau High School, and the DOE reassigned students and staff throughout the complex area to accommodate families.

In all, some 1,700 students and 300 employees at seven schools were affected by the changes.

About 850 Pahoa students who lived north of the lava flow were moved to the Keaau school complex, while about 850 students who lived south of the flow were reassigned to Pahoa High and Intermediate or Pahoa Elementary.

The DOE has said it will reopen the Keone­poko Elementary campus in Hawaiian Beaches in the fall, when all public school students in the Keaau-Kau-Pahoa complex area are expected to start the school year in their geographically determined schools.

“We realize that some families whose students were reassigned to another school may not want to return to their geographically determined school,” Complex Area Superintendent Chad Farias said in a statement. “However, those reassignments were made based on the pending lava flow. Now that the lava has been determined no longer a threat … students must go back to the school they came from for their education.”

Families can apply for geographic exceptions. Applications are available online at bit.ly/1J3Lz6b.

Meanwhile, the department says it is working with the teachers union and other employee unions to determine staffing needs in order “to return the maximum number of employees to their pre-lava flow schools.”