Finding a balance to extremes

I've been looking for alternative preschools for Bugsy, and it's so hard to find a balance.  At one end we have the specialized schools, where they only serve atypical children and work with a functional curriculum.  At the other end, we have your typical preschools that the regular average preschooler would attend.  Finding a balance that would allow my Bugsy to benefit the most from her environment is proving to be a challenge. 

Bugsy's main needs are communication and social skills.  We got a speech-generating device over the summer for her, and she is beginning to learn it.  However, she still needs a lot of support to effectively communicate using her "talker". 

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Currently, Bugsy is in a special day class with our local school district.  She is in a non-categorical class with about six other children.  The teacher is wonderful, and the two aides are great too.  However, her teacher and aides are not trained to support Bugsy's "talker", and the district has been less than enthusiastic with the many (free) training opportunities we have presented.  I know something about the device, but I'm no expert and I definitely can't train the school staff in 5 minute increments when I drop Bugsy off in the morning.  Furthermore, all of the children in the classroom have various social impediments.  No one is really playing together.  How is Bugsy supposed to work on her social skills with a bunch of other kids that don't have any?  It's like the blind leading the blind.

I have toured a couple of typical preschools, but they've been downright depressing.  24 children, 1 teacher, 1 aide.  "Controlled chaos" seems to be the running theme.  My Bugsy would absolutely drown in there.  All the schools mentioned a shadow aide, which we have no problems with...except I want the shadow aide to be an aide, not a teacher.  I've had more than one school tell me they don't have time to teach her, but they can provide the curriculum and facility for her aide to work with her.

Then on the other end, you have specialized schools that only serve children with disabilities.  The school I'm touring this morning has eight children per class, but also eight teachers.  They have lots of experience with speech-generating devices.  But they have no typical peer interaction time, and their classes are mixed age. 

So, I'm left with trying to find a balance to the two extremes.  In a typical preschool, Bugsy will be able to work on social skills, but her communication deficits would pretty much be neglected.  In a specialized school, they will be a great support for her communication, but will not be able to offer much in terms of social skills. 

I understand that you can't have everything in life, but weighing which of Bugsy's deficits to work on is so hard.  Like every parent, I want everything for my child.  But I think it might be time for us to consider that in trying to do everything (in her special day class), we are not doing very well at anything at all. 

Have you ever been in a situation where you had to concentrate on something at the expense of something else?  How did you make your decision?