U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and 45th District Washington state Senate candidate Manka Dhingra met with students ranging in age from elementary to college at Dhingra’s campaign headquarters to field questions about education.

Billed as a “school house talk,” it allowed the Democrats to answer questions posed by the students.

The pair started off giving brief introductions, with both women saying they didn’t grow up with a goal of running for office.

Dhingra, a King County deputy prosecuting attorney, said she only got interested in running after the results of last November’s presidential election.

“When I was growing up, I never thought I’d be in politics,” she said.

But after her hopes of seeing a woman president were dashed, she said she wanted to run for office with a focus on education, mental health and criminal justice.

Murray also said improving mental health services in schools was important in both the state and across the nation.

“Mental health is all of our problems,” she said.

Training and equipping teachers to be able to identify mental health issues, and for schools to have resources available to help were some of her goals, Murray said.

Murray and Dhingra also restated their commitment to public education and concerns that President Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos would be scaling back public funding to pay for private school vouchers.

“The school is not a commodity, it’s a community,” Dhingra said.

Dhingra also expressed concerns about the administration’s decision to not investigate sexual assault on campuses at a federal level.

When asked how she would define the state Supreme Court McCleary decision to fully fund basic education, Dhingra said that to her this meant more than just class sizes and facilities.

It also meant funding auxiliary services like school libraries, cafeterias, food programs and support staff.

She also wants to see state high schools implement more internship and apprenticeship programs for students who may not be heading to a traditional four-year university.

Creating these public-private partnerships could also help lower the cost of education for many people who wouldn’t have to attend colleges.

Dhingra is running against Republican Jinyoung Lee Englund for the 45th Senate seat. The winner of the election could decisively tip the balance of power in the state Legislature.

In recent days, Dhingra has also said that if elected, she will be proposing gun control measures intended to make it harder for people with a history of violence coupled with mental illness, as well as those with domestic violence restraining orders against them, to buy guns.

This year’s election will fall on Nov. 7, and ballots will be mailed out on Oct. 18.