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Harvard was slow to establish elementary school education and slower still to create a centralized system.. After some prodding from the county court at Worcester, in 1740 a Special Town Meeting voted that the selectmen would have power over four districts, each with its own schoolhouse and budget. Over time, five additional districts were added, and in 1785 Schoolhouse No. 1 was built in town center, immediately to the west of the general store. That center schoolhouse was replaced in 1851 by a two-story Greek Revival building, located between the general store and the Congregational Church. With its separate buildings, finances, and governances, the district system was inefficient and unequal, but the town clung to the model until 1878. At that time, the school system became more centralized, but until 1905, children still attended school in different district schoolhouses around town.

In 1904, Stanley, Edwin, and Emily Hildreth gave land and money for a grammar school to be built on Mass. Avenue. The school was officially named the Harvard Elementary School but was most often referred to as the Brown Building because of the color of the wooden building. The 1851 Center Schoolhouse was disassembled and moved to Ayer, where it became an apartment house. The Brown building, which in 1956 had a new building added behind it, remained until 1988, when it was replaced by a new brick building. In 2010 the school was renamed the Hildreth Elementary School in honor of the family who had provided land and money for it.

The elementary school changed again beginning in 2019 when it was demolished, and a new building to the north of the old school  opened in 2021. The site of the former school building is now a playing field.

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Information from “A Common History” by Carlene Phillips, and ” Directions of a Town” by Robert Anderson.