John Garvey

• Retired teacher

John Garvey, a retired high school special education teacher for 23 years and longtime UFT activist who was perhaps best known as the founder of the UFT Veterans Committee, died on Jan. 1, 2025. The longtime assistant chapter leader and NYSUT and AFT delegate was 64.

John, who retired from teaching in 2015, transferred to Long Island City HS in February 1993 after a short stint at the former Andrew Jackson HS, also in Queens. He expressed an interest in helping with UFT work and was immediately named the assistant chapter leader at Long Island City HS. He quickly developed a niche as the union representative new teachers would turn to for help.

“John was always there for new teachers,” UFT retiree Ken Achiron, the chapter leader at Long Island City HS for 33 years, said. “Whether the issue was pension, certification or any issue new teachers needed to fulfill by a deadline, John would hound them until they got it done.

“A lot of teachers through the years told me John helped save their job.”

John and Achiron were among a group of teachers who put together a UFT Teacher Center-certified new teacher workshop — tailored to Long Island City HS — where new members could acquire their required credits.

“John taught it with me and three other members in our building committee,” Achiron said, adding, “He also encouraged the new teachers to attend our union meetings.”

Nicholas Lung-Bugenski, now the dean at Bayside HS in Queens, was one of those new teachers John helped.

“When I got to Long Island City, John was part of the welcoming committee,” Lung-Bugenski said. “We have a similar sense of humor and we hit it off right away and became friends from Day One. He was always making people smile with a quip or a joke. Even in the most tense moments, he would break the tension by saying something funny and getting everyone to laugh.”

In the classroom, John was a devoted special education teacher, said his brother Scott Garvey, a retired public school teacher in Buffalo who was also a NYSUT delegate.

“When we would get together at the NYSUT Representative Assembly, he would tell me about his work with students in the ROTC program at Long Island City and helping his special education kids master skills they would need in the real world — how to cook and deal with other life skills,” Scott said.

Achiron also noted that during Regents week every year, John would haul in a large popcorn machine on wheels that he owned so that teachers could enjoy snacking between proctoring.

When it came to working with students in the ROTC program, it was family tradition that drew John to military service, a sense of duty he carried throughout his life. He served nine years in the United States Army and Army Reserves, and was deployed to Iraq as a reservist during Desert Storm.

“Our father fought in the Korean War, but it went further than that,” Scott said. “Our uncle served in the Navy in World War II and a great uncle served in World War I. John was always interested and wanted to serve, also.”

John’s miliary service led to him founding the UFT Veterans Committee, organizing wreath-laying ceremonies at monuments in the city and participating in parades on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, as well as providing support to fellow veterans who became educators.

“John’s surviving legacy was the three-year pension credit awarded to veterans who became teachers, paraprofessionals and secretaries,” said Donald Nobles, who followed John as chair of the UFT Veterans Committee. “With the aid of NYSUT and the UFT, John personally championed the fight to win the benefits through the state Legislature.”

John was active in his community in Wantagh, on Long Island, serving as a member of the Wantagh Lions Club, where he set up local food drives, and American Legion Post 1273, where he organized veteran poppy sales to raise money for those who need help as a result of injuries and hardship caused by fighting in wars and by their time in the armed services.

A lifetime member of Boy Scout Troop 656, John earned the rank of Eagle Scout and later served on the troop committee and as merit badge counselor.

He loved taking part in his community block party each year, where he would set up his popcorn machine to the delight of the neighborhood children, his brother Scott said.

Besides Scott and Scott’s wife, Lisa, also a retired NYSUT member, John is survived by his daughter, Marielle Friedman, his sister, Joanne Derr, and her husband, Richard, as well as his dog Forrest, who accompanied him to family outings, on errands and walks on the Jones Beach boardwalk.

A visitation will take place from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on April 27 at Wantagh Abbey Funeral Home, located at 3374 Park Ave. in Wantagh, with John’s final inurnment taking place the following day.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations in John’s memory be made to the Long Island Golden Retriever Rescue.

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