By 1868, a public grammar school was operating in Auburn, part of the Township 19, Range 26 schools, holding classes in the same building as the private Auburn High.

[3] On February 17, 1885, the state legislature authorized the Auburn School District, with an elected school board and the power to levy a 0.5% tax on sales in the town limits of Auburn.

The first black students were admitted to Auburn High in June 1965, with four grades desegregating each of the following three years.

[11] Expansion of existing school campuses kept up with growth until the 1992 construction of the Auburn Early Education Center, the state's first large public kindergarten-only facility.

[12] New elementary schools were constructed in 1998 (Yarbrough & Ogletree) and 2008 (Richland) while expansion of other campuses continued virtually non-stop from the 1990s into the 2010s.