This paper highlights findings from two aspects of a case study on the partnership between one mid-size California public school district and a private university sponsored literacy project to cultivate teacher efficacy and reignite early student literacy during and after COVID-19 contexts. Grounded in teacher efficacy in literacy instruction and transformational coaching for equity, a longitudinal pre-mid-post cohort mixed methods self-report survey and an intervention-inactive control single-phase mixed-methods survey were used to understand how supporting teacher-leader coaches could benefit teacher efficacy in foundational reading instruction as well as impact transformational coaching overtime for increased student foundational reading success for school improvement.