It was created to furnish a broad range of educational services to the 35 rural public school districts, five area vocational-technical schools, and approximately 72 non-public schools in Bedford, Blair, Cambria, and Somerset counties in west central and southwestern Pennsylvania—serving approximately 70,000 students in an area covering over 3,500 square miles. IU8 provides programs for curricular development and the improvement of instructional materials; it also offers educational management and pupil personnel services, and serves as a liaison between school districts and state and federal education agencies.

IU8's mission is to be a leader in educational partnerships with its customers—the school districts and their students—by offering a broad range of quality educational, technological, and support services through continuous innovation. IU8 has continued to identify the needs of our customers and provide cost-effective quality services to meet those needs by focusing on six pillars, which support the foundation of the organization: customers, fiscal responsibility, innovation, empowerment, leadership, and systems. More specifically, its goals are to: develop interactive communication among its districts and the surrounding community; respond to its customers’ needs by offering a broad range of educational, technological, and learning support services; promote continuous staff development for its internal and external stakeholders by informing educational providers of the latest educational methods, materials, and technology; and periodically assess its efforts to determine the quality of its services and the changing and expanding needs of its customers, in order to provide the highest quality and most comprehensive educational opportunities and effective learning environments for the students within IU8.

The general operations of the Intermediate Unit are governed by a Board of Directors, comprised of 13 elected members, who are responsible for developing operating policies, defining unit functioning, and overseeing financial management. These board members constitute a representative sample of the communities and their populations within the four-county area.