School leaders never get tired of telling anyone who will listen about their single-minded commitment to the educational needs of their students.

Here is what I think this generally means: Given the culture and organization of my District and its priorities and self-image, we are committed to meeting the educational needs of our students.

Here is what a single-minded focus on the educational needs of students without any subordinate clauses looks and sounds like:

Some time ago a conversation I was having with a school administrator had gone back and forth for about 30 minutes. I was calmly explaining that the School District had for years failed to meet its legal obligation to provide appropriate instruction to a student. The administrator said in a variety of ways that while he heard me loud and clear, he could do nothing.

And then he said in a slightly weary, but matter of fact tone, without a hint of rancor, frustration or sarcasm, “sometimes, you just have to file a lawsuit.”

I like to think of myself as slow but not stupid, but it has taken several months to fully understand what the administrator was trying to tell me.

I am convinced this administrator wasn’t only saying that the culture, organization and practices of the District he was leading can sometimes get in the way of education vulnerable students. He wasn’t just being honest.

I also understood him to be saying four additional and far more consequential things :

1) Following existing policies and practices of the District is not a good enough reason for failing to meet the needs of this student.

2) You need to sue the District to increase the likelihood that that this student will get the education he is entitled to, there is no other way.

3) You should do this even though it will be met with embarrassment and maybe even anger in in the district I help lead.

4) Realizing the educational needs of this student is so important that I will reconfigure my professional relationship with you so that it can accommodate the publicly adversarial dimension that comes with filing a lawsuit.

I believe his message isn’t just right it is wise and mature. It is also virtually unheard of even—especially?—in Districts that understand themselves to be single-mindedly committed to the educational needs of their most vulnerable students.

Sometimes, the educational needs of a student do not align with District practices and priorities, what the award-winning principal wants, or what is best for the teacher. Invariably, only someone within the District can both grasp this fact in its totality and understand what needs to happen to ensure the educational needs of the child are, in fact, met.

We need District officials who are willing when necessary to—in the language of Albert Hirchman—exercise “voice.” Voice, not for its own sake, but because it’s the only way to fulfill the lofty mission of educating every child, the only way to realize this wildly impossible aspiration that they have so publicly and consistently committed themselves to, the only way, finally, to convince themselves in the quiet moments at the end of the day that they are, in fact, living up to their deepest values and thus able to sleep soundly knowing they are on the side of the angels.

This—to paraphrase James Baldwin—is the real price of the ticket, labeled “I am about the educational needs of every child in my care,” that all of us in education want to have in our hands.