There is a desk, a table and some chairs, and a small team of bobblehead dolls inside Brian Lally’s office.

The new director of Human Resources for Barrington Public Schools is a big fan of basketball and proudly displays his collection of Providence College basketball bobbleheads. (In fact, he picked up a new one at a PC game earlier this month.) 

Lally, a PC graduate, was hired in December by the district to fill the HR position — it is a new position for Barrington Public Schools.

Lally initially thought he had missed on his chance to work in Barrington, because the HR position had been posted for a few weeks before Lally saw it. 

“My whole career has been in education, and ever since I was a teacher and an administrator, Barrington has always been tops. Even going back to when I was in school,” Lally said. “I figured I’d missed the boat, because it had been posted for a month. When he (Barrington Superintendent of Schools Mike Messore) reached out to me and said we were still in the process of interviewing, I was super excited.”

Lally, who previously worked for North Kingstown public schools, quickly grew to appreciate the size of the Barrington school district. 

“It’s a smaller district than what I came from in North Kingstown, which is nice. That has a lot of benefits,” Lally said. “We have our community schools at the elementary levels, a gorgeous building at the middle school, and the high school is in great shape too. To see those buildings and the community atmosphere, it’s been nice.

“Everyone here at Central Admin has been super helpful, getting me up to speed with everything. This being a new position, everyone had different parts of HR that they were doing.”

Lally said he handles a variety of tasks for the school district — everything from addressing staff absences to drafting new HR-related policies. 

“I think a lot of it to start with was getting to know the players, sort of getting my feet under me. A month in, I’m well past that point,” Lally said. 

Messore said Lally’s arrival had an instant impact on the other central administration staff. HR tasks that had been split up between different people were delegated to Lally.

One of Lally’s most important roles, Messore said, is to offer support for teachers and other staff members.

“…as I told the staff, this is a layer of support for you,” Messore said. “That’s what it’s all about… It takes things off our plate for sure, but my main goal is to say ‘How are we best supporting our staff?’”