Each afternoon at the Early Learning Center, the chant of “We are PIONEERS!” can be heard from the parking lot.

The school’s gym is the Poughkeepsie High School cheerleading team’s afterschool home through the fall and winter months. But in recent weeks, the intensity has escalated. As the Pioneers run through their routine, coaches call out to keep arms straight; tighten up motions; be loud; be energetic.

The team is preparing for a competition coach Lynnece Edmond said has been the goal since she took the reins roughly a dozen years ago. Next month, the Pioneers will take part in the National High School Cheerleading Championship at Walt Disney World Resort just outside of Orlando, Florida.

The team earned that right by virtue of their performance at the Universal Cheerleaders Association, or UCA, Empire Regional competition at Iona University in New Rochelle Dec. 15. 

“We’re very excited and honored to go,” senior Morgan James said Jan. 3, hours after the Board of Education formally approved the trip. “It’s genuinely just a privilege. Not every team can do this. The fact that they saw the potential in us to go, and the fact that the board approved us going, too, that’s more than we can ask for.”

Poughkeepsie competes in the Small Varsity Division II Non Tumbling Game Day branch of the competition, with the preliminary round scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 8. The team plans to fly south 6 a.m. the day before and return that Sunday night.

Edmond said this trip was simmering in the background all along as the team over the years hit benchmarks.

“Ultimately, this was a goal. But, you had to start with getting them to compete,” she said. “We started out by building a team and just competing locally, and then from there just the past two years we went to camp.”

Poughkeepsie attended the UCA Trails End Cheerleading Camp in August and excelled, sharpening skills and learning more about how to maximize scoring in competitions. Edmond said only teams who participated in the camp were eligible for regionals.

“My goal was, the third year of going to camp we go to nationals,” she said. “But, the team demonstrated they could do it. And, we got the bid.”

While the Florida experience will be new for most of the Pioneers, senior Allysha Anderson has some experience. In November, the senior traveled to Disney World at her family’s expense and performed in UCA’s in the Varsity Spirit Spectacular parade. She was one of four Pioneers who qualified for the trip by making All-American status at the Trails End Camp, but the only one who opted to attend.

After the trip, she spoke about wishing her teammates could share the experience in the future. The performance at regionals made that possible.

“I kept manifesting it, knowing that we are a good team, we just have to work on a few things,” the senior said. “We got that bid and we got it because we did our best and we practiced and did what we had to do.

“It makes me really excited,” Anderson said of going back to Disney with her team. “I get to show them what I experienced but in a different way.”

Standing next to her, James wore a Mickey Mouse shirt. When asked if she was a Disney fan, her eyes got wide and a smile grew. “My favorite movie is ‘The Princess and the Frog,’” she said of the 2009 animated Disney film. “I know that movie word-for-word, song-for-song, bar-for-bar.”

The funding for the 13 cheerleaders and five adults to make the trip is coming from the athletics budget and more than five years of fundraising by the team. Each year, the team hosts two competitions from which they can earn and squirrel away funding for an opportunity like this; the Pioneers are, in fact, hosting their annual “Cheer from the Heart” competition five days after returning from Florida.

The team held a celebration last month at the Exempt Firemen’s Association shortly after learning the funding was there to make the trip possible. Then, they got back to work with the intensity “times 10,” Edmond said.

“We told them the easy part was getting the bid,” she said. “The hard part will be going to nationals.”

The key, assistant coach Za’ire People said, will be “continuously performing up to standards.” Amid the excitement, they’ll need to “perform at a higher level underneath all of the lights and the audience and the judges, still do what they know and trust their cheer instincts in order for them to accomplish their goal and come home with something.”

When you ask the athletes about goals for the trip, some will say placing second or third; others first or second. Edmond interjects: “It begins with preliminaries Saturday. They have to get a certain score at prelims in order to advance to Sunday.”

Azelia David’s approach differed. The senior was among those made All-American but did not go to Disney in November. Her goal is focused on sharing the experience with her team.

“Placing is one thing, but I genuinely always have fun with my team,” the cheerleader affectionately nicknamed “Tiny” said. “Even if we don’t place, I’m still going to be on that plane with a smile. 

“As long as I know we did good,” she said, “in my opinion, I’m chilling.”