PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA and his wife Michelle are shelling out a whopping $70,000 a year to send their two daughters to an elite private school – but The ENQUIRER has busted the school’s secret by learning the academy has been embroiled in a shocking cocaine scandal!
The exclusive Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., is also involved in a stunning court battle that threatens to expose even more sordid sex and drug secrets!
First daughter Malia, 14, is a high school freshman and competes on the varsity tennis team at the prestigious academy, which costs $34,268 a year. Little sis Sasha, 11, just started sixth grade there.
And while the First Parents publicly support the school, behind the scenes they’re concerned by its disgraceful problems, said an Obama family insider.
“Certainly, the trouble at the school has upset both Barack and Michelle,” revealed the source. “Some friends have suggested the girls be tutored privately at the White House, but the Obamas are keen to have the girls’ educational experience be as normal as possible. They don’t want them home-schooled.”
Founded in 1883, Sidwell Friends has a world-class reputation, but The ENQUIRER has learned drug and alcohol use is rampant among students.
A stunning 71 percent of Sidwell students said they attended parties where drugs and alcohol were available, according to an official study published in the school newspaper, “Horizon.”
What’s more, nearly 25 percent of the senior boys polled admitted to driving under the influence of alcohol!
And a former Sidwell student reveals the alarming extent of marijuana and cocaine use by the students!
“I have seen kids snorting coke, smoking pot, getting high and boozing,” the former student, now an adult, told The ENQUIRER.
“There’s huge money at the school and the older kids host parties at their private residences. Many of them live in big mansions in Washington, or in affluent suburbs where drugs and booze are common.”
Shockingly, a Sidwell graduate was recently arrested for “possession with intent to distribute cocaine and methylene (also known as Ecstasy).”
According to published reports, Hugh L. Elsbree, 31, was busted by D.C. police in April for running a drug lab out of a luxury apartment complex in the District’s Adams Morgan neighborhood.
The reports noted that Elsbree was a “graduate of Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C.,” and also had a master’s degree from Boston University.
With widespread drug and alcohol use at the school, the peer pressure on the first daughters to join in will be overwhelming, said the former student.
“While the Obama girls are smart, they will find themselves in situations with school friends where they’ll be pressured to experiment,” explained the source.
“Although they have Secret Service protection, their escorts will not always be at their side during private parties. So anything can happen.”
In his 1995 memoir “Dreams from My Father,” President Obama admitted that he indulged in marijuana, alcohol and sometimes cocaine as a high school student in Hawaii.
That family history could make the first daughters even more susceptible to substance abuse, says an expert.
“There is solid evidence of a genetic link to alcohol addiction,” Dr. Lester S. Silver, an addiction specialist at the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, N.Y., who has not treated the chief executive, told The ENQUIRER.
“It is entirely possible that predisposition to drug addiction can also be inherited.”
With that in mind, “It’s clear Barack will tell his daughters not to do as he did in high school,” said the Washington, D.C., insider.
Meanwhile, a $10 million lawsuit against Sidwell threatens to rip the lid off a sleazy sex scandal involving the school’s former staff psychologist, James Huntington, who’s been fired.
According to bombshell court papers obtained by The ENQUIRER, Huntington was allegedly carrying on an affair with the married mother of a 5-year-old female student he was counseling.
The amorous shrink allegedly took his three children, the mother and her two kids to a Washington, D.C., hotel, where he booked adjoining rooms so the couple could “fool around” while the children slept, according to the suit.
In a shocking twist, Huntington taught sex education to sixth-gr aders in 2009 and 2010 – the same time that first daughter Malia attended sixth grade at Sidwell!
According to the suit, at that time Huntington was also counseling students on yet another sex scandal – the firing of a middle school teacher for an improper relationship with a pupil.
In that case, Robert A. “Pete” Peterson, 65, was given five years probation for fondling a 15-year-old student. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender.
The $10 million suit involving Huntington has yet to be settled, and “the ongoing court battle threatens to expose even more sordid secrets about Sidwell,” said the source.
Meanwhile, the first daughters’ education has been blasted by Internet bloggers after their mother addressed the family’s past struggles in her speech at the recent Democratic National Convention.
“Oh, those poor struggling Obamas LOL,” wrote one blogger. “What is so wrong with the school system that would cause you to spend 25k each per school year to send your kids to SFS…”
Another report noted that while the Obama girls went back to Sidwell, “45,000 public school children will be heading back to failing schools.” The source said: “For all the money the Obamas are spending to send their girls to Sidwell, the school is rife with the same scandals they’d hoped to avoid at a public school.”
