Cassandra Washington
Cassandra Washington is a wellness advocate, experienced educator, transformational speaker, and travel and wellness content creator with 28 years of service in the Chicago Public Schools system. She served as both a teacher and a school principal before retiring in 2017, building a distinguished career grounded in instructional leadership, student development, and educator support. She holds advanced degrees in education from National Louis University and is widely recognized for her commitment to fostering learning environments centered on growth, equity, and professional excellence.
Following her retirement, Cassandra fully embraced her long-standing passion for travel—an interest she had nurtured throughout her career but had limited time to pursue. She founded Sustah-Girl Chronicles, LLC, a digital publishing and media platform dedicated to travel, wellness, and renewal for women over 50 and solo travelers. Through her blog and content initiatives, she researches destinations that are safe, welcoming, and enriching for this demographic, while also partnering with organizations to highlight the significance and influence of this often-overlooked market.
In addition to her work in travel and content creation, Cassandra continues to serve the education community through professional development presentations, workshops, and tutoring for students. Her work is deeply rooted in educator wellness, with a focus on helping teachers and administrators prioritize self-care and build resilience to prevent burnout. She is the creator of two virtual wellness conferences titled “Educate and Exhale,” launched after being postponed during the pandemic and personal health challenges. Her mission is to build sustainable wellness communities at the local, state, and national levels, while empowering women over 50 to travel confidently, prioritize their well-being, and live with purpose, freedom, and fulfillment.
• WITT Accredit Professional (WITT AP) Program
• WITT101 Certificate & Badge
• Rockford University - B.A, Political Science
• National Louis University - MA, Teaching
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Patience. That's the one thing I would say. You have to have patience, a vision and setting goals is important. Some days you might say, why am I doing this? But just really understanding your purpose for why you want to pursue wellness, travel and wellness, or educator wellness, or whatever you're trying to pursue. Just making sure you understand why you're doing it, and just being persistent.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Probably the most challenging thing is really getting people, companies or educational organizations, to really listen about the importance of wellness in any industry. Because, you know, people are dealing with humans, and they break, whether it's professionally or something personally, but understanding that they need programs and resources and support in every aspect of life. As a good employer, this is something that will help you keep your people and where they are ready to come to work, where they're able to come to work, and just building strong relationships around the wellness piece in the business. It's hard to get people to understand why that is important, but you just have to throw the data at them, and say, hey, you know, one in five new teachers are leaving the profession within 5 years. So, that's costing money, you gotta rehire, you gotta retrain, you need that consistency in these schools, you need people with experience. That's a hard one for people to understand. I think they see the data, but I don't think they get the concept.
Locations
Sustah-Girl Chronicles, LLC
Chicago, IL 60643