Sometimes the scars imprinted on a young person who’s been bullied are invisible; imperceptible to the naked eye, but deeply felt nonetheless by the victim who’s been subjected to endless taunts and jeers. In other cases, those scars are quite visible, a physical manifestation of cruelties inflicted by peers. Claudio Cerullo bears both kinds of scars. In adulthood, he has made it his mission to advocate for other victims, while addressing the root causes of bullying in schools and communities and fighting for change to hold abusers accountable.
Cerullo’s family moved to Easton in 1975 when he was six years old. He says his troubles began around sixth grade, when he was picked on because of his Italian background and subjected to ethnic slurs. At first, he wasn’t even aware he was being mocked; the words the other kids used were unfamiliar to him. “They’d say, ‘Hey, how’d your dago?’ And I’d say, ‘Fine, thank you,’” he recalls.
It also didn’t help that his family didn’t have much money, so he could never afford to dress in what was considered the trendy attire of the day. “I didn’t have penny loafers, I didn’t have a hoodie,” says Cerullo. “I found a hood in the lost and found and taped it to my jacket just to try to be like everybody else.” But the harder he tried to fit in, the worse he was mocked.
The mistreatment escalated in a major way when he was walking home from school one day. A group of kids who had been hiding under a porch surprised him and threw rocks at him. Their attack left his face battered and bloodied. But Cerullo didn’t tell anyone what happened. When he got home, he threw away his bloody clothes. “I was just afraid,” he says. “I always was this kind of meek kid, skinny Italian boy who could run fast but I never wanted any problems with anyone.”
Cerullo channeled his anger and frustration into exercise and sports. He later transferred to Notre Dame High School in Bethlehem Township, where he excelled at football and track. Claudio continued his education at Moravian University (then Moravian College), from which he graduated in 1992 with a bachelor’s degree in social science education. He would go on earn master’s degrees in elementary and secondary education and psychology, as well as a Doctor of Philosophy degree in educational leadership.
Claudio Cerullo worked in education for a while in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including a stint as president of the Easton Area School Board. But a chance meeting in 2011 would change his personal and professional trajectories. By then, with memories of his own experiences in childhood still fresh in his mind, Cerullo had waded into anti-bullying instruction and victim advocacy. A woman approached him after he had spoken at a conference about how bullying impacts kids who are on the autism spectrum. She asked him if he had ever considered starting an anti-bullying nonprofit. He told her he didn’t know much about the business or nonprofit world. Turns out, the woman, Daniela Desiderio, did.
Ninety days later, along with the help of some other parents, they launched Teach Anti Bullying, an anti-bullying and school violence prevention organization. The group’s mission is to work with teachers, families, law enforcement and governments on understanding and eradicating the bullying crisis from classrooms and communities across the country. They offer services like workshops, assemblies, workplace training and professional development—anything that gets them in front of the people who need to hear their message.
Daily news headlines tell the tale of just how pervasive this problem is in the United States. “You can’t go a day without someone telling a story of an active shooter who was victimized or bullied, to someone taking their own life,” says Cerullo. His own niece survived the deadly 2012 shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut when she was in fourth grade.
Advances in technology and ubiquitous social media platforms have only made it more difficult for victims to escape their bullies. “It takes an army. We’re fighting a never-ending battle,” Cerullo says. “The brutality, the endless verbal language and how insulting some kids can be, especially via social media, it’s just endless and cruel.”
The advocacy arm of Teach Anti Bullying is working to instill accountability, whether that be in school districts and parents who turn a blind eye to troubling behavior, or social media companies that expose young users to unreasonable risk. Cerullo has served on anti-bullying task forces at both the state and federal level. He’s helped to get anti-bullying legislation on the books in Camden, New Jersey, one of the few cities in the country that’s taken such a step.
Ultimately, Cerullo wants an audience at the White House in Washington, D.C. “I would like an executive order, not just having anti-bullying during the month of October, but that we recognize it all 12 months out of the year, and we start to look at mental health and how it relates to bullying.”
His efforts over the years have earned him numerous accolades. Among the highlights: in 2013, the Philadelphia 76ers honored him with a “Heroes Among Us” award; the Pennsylvania State Legislature presented him with an Outstanding Community Service Citation in 2018 for his work to help develop safe schools; and in 2023, Cerullo was recognized by Channel 6 Action News for his Sneakers for Smiles program, which provides new kicks to bullying victims and those who speak up against it.
Cerullo spoke to Channel 6 at the tail end of a long recovery from a life-threatening staph infection. Even though he still wasn’t feeling great, he said he was determined to keep his commitments to the young sneaker recipients: “I think it exemplifies that no matter how beat down someone is, there’s always someone else that may be hurting intrinsically more so than you. And you have to keep trudging forward.”
Cerullo estimates that Sneakers for Smiles has donated more than 1,200 pairs of sneakers. But the reaction from the recipient never gets old, Cerullo says. “That precious video or photo I get when they get a pair of shoes… I wish I had something like that when I was a kid. I would have been so elated.”
Those are the moments that buoy him on the darker days—and there are many. Hearing about a young person’s suicide always hits him hard. “It should never get to that point of no return. The cruelty,” Cerullo says. He’s quick to point out that he has his own village when it comes to pushing forward. Daniela Desiderio, the woman who was instrumental in the founding of teachantibullying.org, and serves as its executive director today, became his wife in 2017. “She’s just an endless support system for me,” he says. “She’s a motivator.”
Together they share three children, all of whom are now young adults and involved with the anti-bullying movement. They’re often a presence at Teach Anti Bullying fundraisers, but their youth may be their biggest asset, when it comes to helping Cerullo navigate the intricacies of social media and read between the lines of teen-speak: “They can speak peer to peer, and help me to interpret coded messages,” says Cerullo. “They’re like my own little spies.”
Cerullo, who lives in Delaware County, is an author, too. His latest book is Inside the Mind of a Bully: From Victim to Advocate. Besides serving as a resource and guidebook for adults, it’s also the story of how Cerullo rose above the bullying of his childhood to become a successful, empowered adult. It’s an outcome he hopes to share with the millions of children who are bullied every year. “Seeing that there is a caring adult who is an advocate for them and can be a voice is a narrative that I believe is very powerful,” said Cerullo.
drclaudiocerullo.com | teachantibullying.org
Published as “Insight” in the February 2025 edition of Lehigh Valley Style magazine.
