Washington's Elite Abuzz As Obamas Settle on a School

At last it's official. One of the gravest and most consequential decisions Barack Obama will make in his presidency - as least as far as a small and highly privileged segment of Washington is concerned - has been taken. Obama and his wife, Michelle, have decided where their two girls will go to school.

In a city where social status is conferred by proximity to political power, the Obamas' decision on where to educate their two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, seven, had assumed outsize importance - in no small part because of the potential social opportunities it offers to Washington's elite and wealthy parents.

Washingtonians are used to the quadrennial changing of the political guard, but there is a special excitement this time around about the incoming First Family. It has been decades since there were children this young in the White House, and there has never been an African-American family there at all. The decision on schools is the first in a trail of clues as to what sort of town Obama's Washington will be, to be followed in due course by solemn announcements of the family's choice of puppy, chef and sport of choice at the White House, as well as what church the family will attend.

On schools, the Obamas have made the predictable choice: Sidwell Friends School. The Quaker-founded school is liberal with a strong green orientation, and has an excellent academic reputation. The population is about 1,000, and 39 per cent of pupils describe themselves as being of color.

'A number of great schools were considered,' said Michelle Obama's spokesman, Katie McCormick Lelyveld. 'In the end, the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need.'

So that's one key element of the transition decided. Obama's cabinet also took on greater shape yesterday. Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is to be Treasury Secretary. Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico who served as Energy Secretary under Bill Clinton, is to take commerce and Hillary Clinton is expected to be formally confirmed as Secretary of State following the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. Obama announced last night that close aide Robert Gibbs would be White House press secretary with Ellen Moran serving as director of communications.

The Obamas' deliberations on schooling had been closely followed in Washington, where there was keen appreciation for the potential benefits of a presidential connection. The morning after his election, Obama had been photographed dropping his children off at school in Chicago - fuelling anticipation about the possibility of befriending the President or First Lady on the school run when the family move to the capital. There are other potential points of connection: Sasha and Malia, when they start at school in Washington, might want to invite some of their new friends to the White House.

Sidwell has a long connection with money and the political elite. It is the alma mater of President Nixon's eldest daughter Tricia Nixon Cox, Chelsea Clinton and Al Gore III, the son of the former Vice-President. The three granddaughters of the Vice-President-elect, Joe Biden, are at the school. A number of former Hillary Clinton aides send their children there, including her pollster, Mark Penn. The journalist Bob Woodward sends his child there. And some are not shy of using these connections.

One leading Democratic fundraiser and hostess in Washington had her granddaughter, who is at Sidwell and is about the age of the Obamas' eldest daughter, write a letter to Malia praising the school - which Malia then passed to her mother.

In contrast to what might happen in Britain, there has been little debate about whether the Obamas would choose a private or a state school, and they are unlikely to face much criticism for choosing to pay fees. Tuition starts at more than $28,000 a year. The last presidential child to attend public (state) school was Amy Carter, in the 1970s, and she was the first for more than 70 years. Photos show her scurrying into the school yard with a newspaper over her face, trying to shield herself from photographers.

The city's mayor, Adrian Fenty, had urged the Obamas to consider sending their children to a public school because of the message it would send other parents in Washington. The mayor sends his own twin sons to a private school.

With that decision out of the way, the conversation in Washington yesterday turned to the Obamas' choice of church. Here they have to navigate not only class but race, because the choice could also reawaken the controversy over Obama's former pastor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, at his church in Chicago.

Sally Quinn, the self-appointed arbiter of the capital's social scene, has also weighed in on the subject, with a piece in yesterday's Washington Post recommending the National Cathedral, which is Episcopalian. The Obamas might want to listen to Quinn, wife of the former Washington Post editor, Ben Bradlee: she famously felt snubbed by the Clintons when they arrived in Washington and Hillary did not jump at an invitation to be introduced to her social set. Quinn spent the next eight years cavilling about how the Clintons lacked class.

Now, where will the Obama girls do ballet?