Something Else That Makes No Damn Sense

There's a student named Asia.
She's super smart and has a severe emotional disorder. Before this school year, nothing was done to address her emotional problems. Her brother is in the Emotional Disorders program at our school. (Those classrooms have like 8-10 kids, they have one-on-one aides, and the teachers and staff have permission to physically restrain students who are a danger to themselves or others. They also have a "time-out" room.)
Our team referred Asia for this program earlier in the school year. She was able to maintain in the classroom about 60% of the time, but that other 40% she was running around tearing down bulletin boards or stealing people's work and ripping it up. Apparently she ran outside one day and tried to get into someone's car (someone who was sitting outside waiting to pick up a child.)
In November, she had an altercation with Ms. P (the one who's out on administrative leave...because of this incident.) After that, she started spiraling downhill. She stopped doing work, she was skipping class and getting in fights with other students. At one point, I saw her running down the hallway and banging her own head against the wall.
At the meeting we had to begin the process of getting her the help she needs, I turned in 20 pages of notes on her behavior. Two days before the meeting, she--completely unprovoked--attacked a teacher (who she didn't even know) in the hallway and followed that teacher down the hall and into the office and attacked her again in the office, hitting her with the notebook the teacher had been carrying earlier.
Asia was given a 45 day suspension for that incident. During her suspension, she has attempted suicide, she has run away from home more than once, she has broken her leg trying to jump out of her bedroom window to run away and she has been institutionalized for about 10 days. Her father has basically given up on her to the point that when she runs away he waits a few days to start looking for her. (She's 11 years old, by the way.)

Asia's 45 day suspension is over this Friday. She is expected to return to our school on Monday March 21.

Here's where the no sense making part starts. Asia will not be placed into the E.D. program yet. She has to be placed into the Special Education classes first. (Special Education is for those who have disabilities keeping them from working on the grade level of their peers; Asia's abilities are far above her peers.) She has to be observed by teachers, staff members and someone from Central Office in the Special Education classroom before she will be allowed to move to E.D.

At her meeting today (which she and her father were invited to, but did not attend) we pleaded with the Special Ed Office to immediately place her in the E.D. program. The Special Education classes are only TWO DOORS away from all of her former classmates and friends. She will see them in the hallway, and she will be embarrassed. I think Asia knows that she needs help, but let's face it, no one wants their friends to think badly of them and I'm worried she will act out just because they are there.

The Special Education teacher put it best when he said that the whole situation is a Catch-22. If Asia acts crazy and hurts herself or someone else, she will be allowed to get the help she needs. But if she acts fine while she's being observed, then she will be stuck in a Special Education class that she does not belong in.

This is my main problem with the whole thing. If Asia went to the mental hospital and has been DIAGNOSED WITH A MENTAL ILLNESS, she has PHYSICALLY ATTACKED two teachers and numerous classmates, WHY WHY WHY does there have to be one more week of pointless observation before she can be placed in a classroom for children with emotional problems? Why wasn't all that other stuff enough?!

This is the kind of stuff I can't handle. Blatantly ruining kids lives for no damn reason.