Melania Trump, who over the course of the campaign has repeatedly talked of how close she is with her and the mogul's only son together, will remain at Trump Tower with Barron through the end of his school year at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, a source close to the situation told The News. ||||| Play Facebook 
 
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 Melania Trump and son Barron are expected to move to the White House and in Washington, D.C. "right after" Barron's school year is completed, president-elect Donald Trump told NBC News. 
 
 Yesterday, the New York Post reported that there was uncertainty surrounding the prospect of Mrs. Trump and her son leaving New York City. Trump himself prompted doubt about the family’s plans to fully relocate with his continued preference to return home to Trump Tower whenever possible, but confirmed to NBC News on Sunday that he intends to live in the White House. 
 
 Related: Ivanka Trump's Company Scrambles Over '60 Minutes' Bracelet Criticism 
 
 Though Trump’s transition team has an office in Washington, D.C., Trump has remained ensconced in his Trump Tower suite and held most of his transition meetings over the past two weeks in the building, as well. 
 
 The issue of Donald Trump's residency has been just one of many questions surrounding his family's potential involvement in his presidency, which include what critics says are conflicts of interest when it comes to the real estate mogul's business. 
 
 Even as Melania and Barron plan to move to the White House, the president-elect is expected to spend part of his time at Trump Tower and his vacation time at his various properties around the United States. This weekend, he retreated to his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., for a change of scenery, but continued meetings with cabinet prospects. 
 
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 The first lady has historically played a prominent public role in a president’s administration by advocating on an issue of national importance and appearing in the president’s stead at various events and media interviews. Melania Trump largely avoided the spotlight of her husband’s campaign and stayed off the trail but has indicated she’s open to taking on more of the traditional activities of a first lady now that her husband has been elected. 
 
 And while presidents have emphasized privacy for their young children in the past, Trump’s adult children and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have taken outsize roles as campaign strategists, confidantes and surrogates and look likely to fill similar roles in his White House. 
 
 Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump have all been in and out of Trump Tower this week along with a stream of campaign advisers and potential cabinet appointees, but the depth of their involvement with the transition is unclear — and has already sparked controversy. 
 
 Trump’s children are expected to manage his business in his stead as he focuses on the White House, but those plans have raised questions over whether Trump will truly be free of conflicts of interest or the influence of his business interests with close family members overseeing them. The Wall Street Journal in an editorial Thursday urged Trump to liquidate his stake in the Trump Organization to avoid the appearance of impropriety. 
 
 Related: Jared Kushner Could End Up at the Heart of Trump White House 
 
 Critics worried about the intertwining of Trump’s White House, family and business interests found cause for concern in Trump’s decision to let his daughter Ivanka sit in on his recent meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. 
 
 Some former government officials told the New York Times that Ivanka’s presence was inappropriate, in part because she’s an executive at an international corporation and topics discussed there could influence her business, but also because of national security concerns. 
 
 A source close to the family, when asked by NBC News about the appearance of conflict from Ivanka Trump's presence at this week's meeting with the Japanese prime minister, provided the following statement: 
 
 "Mr. Trump has always encouraged Ivanka and his children to attend meetings with him. This meeting in question was very informal. However, they obviously need to adjust to the new realities at hand, which they will." 
 
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 NBC News' Chuck Todd questioned incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus, about additional reports raising similar conflict of interest questions, such as a Washington Post report on foreign diplomats being wined and dined at Trump's D.C. hotel and a New York Times story on Trump's meeting last week with three Indian business partners. Todd asked if a blind trust, which would require an independent manager rather than Trump's children to run the business, or divestment was on the table. 
 
 "We're not going to get into the details of that, but that is being handled, and there is nothing being discussed of any import, the meeting was simply cursory," Priebus said. 
 
 "How do we know that?" Todd asked, noting that the press had not been allowed to attend the meeting. 
 
 "There is going to be no violation of any of these rules," Priebus said. "I can assure you of that." ||||| 
 
 President-elect Donald Trump acknowledges his son Barron after delivering his acceptance speech at the New York Hilton Midtown on Nov. 9 in New York City. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) 
 
 It’s been 35 years since a First Kid has attended a school other than Sidwell Friends, the private school whose student body has included Chelsea Clinton and both Obama girls. The elite Quaker institution in leafy upper northwest Washington has educated many a political offspring, from Vice President Biden’s grandchildren to Al Gore III to both Nixon daughters. 
 
 But will President-elect Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, enroll their 10-year-old son, Barron, there? Some educational experts say it’s unlikely. 
 
 First of all, we’re not even sure that The Family Trump will actually decamp from their glittery penthouse spread high atop Trump Tower (where the boy has his own floor) for the relatively more cramped residence at the White House. Which could mean Barron would continue at his current private school in Manhattan, Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School. 
 
 And even if the Trumps do put down roots in Washington, some doubt that the Trumps would pick Sidwell, a school that’s become associated in recent years with the Clintons and the Obamas. “It’s associated with the liberal intelligentsia of Washington,” says educational consultant Steven Roy Goodman, who has helped many a high-profile family navigate the area’s private-school landscape. Ditto the Washington International School, whose internationalist philosophy might not jibe with Trump’s build-the-wall ethos. “I don’t see that as a fit here.” 
 
 [Where will Trump administration officials live in Washington?] 
 
 That still leaves plenty of options. Shall we put aside the idea that he’d attend public school, as Amy Carter did? According to D.C.’s enrollment guide, a kid living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., is slated to attend the School Without Walls at Francis Stevens, a public pre-K-8th-grade institution in Foggy Bottom. But despite Trump’s populist bent, he enrolled Barron (and all his other kids) in private schools. 
 
 Starchy uniforms aren’t a problem for the suit-loving boy, whose mom proudly told ABC “isn’t a sweatpants child.” 
 
 And whatever school they land on will benefit from the prestige of schooling presidential offspring, the marketing value of which is more than enough to offset the hassle of a Secret Service presence. 
 
 Goodman says he often counsels parents to look at their own schooling when picking a spot for their children, since that’s most likely to put them in their comfort zone. “Given what I know about President-elect Trump, which is that he comes from more of a traditional, classic background, I think that might lead you to Virginia schools,” he says. St. Stephen’s and Agnes or Burgundy Farm Country Day School in Alexandria or Westminster in Annandale might fit the bill, he says (though a 703 commute may not sit well with the Secret Service). 
 
 St. Albans, the all-boys school near Washington National Cathedral (short commute!), and St. Anselm’s Abbey in Northeast are often mentioned as possibilities for the future First Kid. And the Potomac School in McLean is no stranger to political kids, either — students have included the grandchildren of former vice president Dick Cheney. 
 
 Leigh Ann Cahill, of the consulting group Independent School Options, notes that the Trumps might want a school that’s similar to the one their son currently attends. Columbia (where Barron is either a fourth- or fifth-grader) is a coed, secular school that’s not thought of as one of Manhattan’s academic pressure-cookers. 
 
 The Landon School, though it’s all-boys, could be a good fit, she says, or a “religion-lite” option, like St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day. 
 
 No matter the school, she says, young Barron might experience some “social bumps” after such a divisive political campaign. “He might find that there’s a level of awareness and even commitment among his classmates,” she says. “It’s not necessarily like that in New York.” ||||| Future first lady Melania Trump and son Barron will not be moving to the White House after Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, The Post has learned. 
 
 The president-elect’s 46-year-old wife and their 10-year-old son are staying put at the family’s glitzy Trump Tower penthouse so that Barron can continue attending his Upper West Side private school, sources told The Post. 
 
 “Melania is extremely close to Barron, and they have become closer during the campaign,” said a source close to Trump’s transition team. “The campaign has been difficult for Barron, and she is really hoping to keep disruption to a minimum.” 
 
 Another source said Melania Trump will travel to the White House as needed, but that her primary focus is on Barron. 
 
 “Melania is very supportive of her husband and is fully on board of doing everything that’s needed as first lady,” said the second source familiar with the Trump transition. 
 
 That source said also that there is a possibility that Melania and Barron may move to the White House at the end of the school year, but no plans are in place. 
 
 “She is really devoted to Barron,” said a source close to the family, adding that Melania has not relied on nannies to raise the child and is frequently seen picking the fourth-grader up from his prep school, where annual tuition is north of $40,000. 
 
 The decision to remain in their Midtown home will increase the security presence around Trump Tower — an effort that will involve both Secret Service and the NYPD, an expert familiar with high-level security told The Post. 
 
 “That building is going to become the White House of New York,” said Jim Reese, a former Delta Force commander and president of TigerSwan, a global security company based in North Carolina. 
 
 “The Secret Service is going to have to keep that whole area cordoned off so that some wacko can’t get close and detonate a car bomb.” 
 
 Strict security measures around Trump Tower will remain in place, with two of the five lanes on Fifth Avenue between East 56th and 57th streets closed because of barriers, said officials at a joint NYPD, Secret Service and City Hall news conference Friday. 
 
 Following the presidential election, the area around Trump Tower has turned into a traffic nightmare, with East 56th Street closed to traffic between Fifth and Madison avenues, and shoppers having to go through a security cordon and subject to bag checks. 
 
 Barron and Melania will each have an unknown number of Secret Service agents assigned to them in addition to a driver and armored vehicle to take Barron to school, Reese said. An advance team of agents will swoop down on the school each morning to make sure it’s safe, he added. 
 
 Additional reporting by Daniel Halper
– The New York Post first reported on Melania and Barron Trump's post-election plans, and now NBC News echos the newspaper: Sources say the two will not accompany Donald Trump to the White House in the immediate aftermath of his Jan. 20 inauguration, but will rather remain largely in Trump Tower until the completion of Barron's school year at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School. He'll wrap up the fourth grade in June, per the New York Daily News. The Washington Post earlier this month speculated about which school Barron would end up attending in Washington, DC. For 35 years, the kids of presidents have enrolled in just one: Sidwell Friends. But an educational consultant thinks Trump may look south, and suggests some possible options in Virginia.