Colleagues, family and friends of Simeonette Mapes, a social studies teacher who helped found the School for the Classics in Brooklyn, gathered on Sept. 27 at a Staten Island street corner that was renamed in her honor during an intimate ceremony. Mapes was killed in July 2012, discovered stabbed to death in her apartment in Staten Island’s New Springville section. She was 29 at the time of her death. The nearby corner of Forest Hill Road and Travis Avenue was named for her in an effort to help her spirit “live on forever,” said her mother, Theresa Mapes. UFT Special Representative Donna Coppola attended the ceremony and noted that “Simeonette made an enormous impact on her colleagues.” She also had a huge effect on her students, according to Janice Ross, the principal at the School for the Classics, which opened in 2009. “It was always evident that Simeonette had a natural gift for working with students who are from socioeconomically challenged environments, but it went far beyond that,” Ross said. “She was, to put it simply, a gifted teacher.” Among Mapes’ contributions to her school, according to her mother, was the formation of the Fairy Godmother Program, which collected dresses for students to wear to the prom. She personally paid for beauty salon appointments for students who couldn’t afford them, her mother noted. left: Coppola (second from right) with her daughters, Gianna (left) and Vanessa; Community Education Council 31 President Mike Reilly; and Mapes’ mother, Theresa Mapes. above: The new street sign after the unveiling.