I went to school in asia in gr. 1 and part of gr. 2, and we went to school in (rather sketchy sounding) white vans!

The vans were private and weren't affiliated with the schools as far as I knew. I attended a semi-private school "in the middle of nowhere" i.e., up on the mountains in a big city, so there was no public transport near enough. The bus driver ladies - I think - had their own vans and charged a yearly fee for shuttling students from door to door. Different ladies ran different routes, depending on their customers - but they tried to get customers from the same area. There were around 15 kids per van, from gr. 1-6... and it seemed like seniority got you a better seat. There was a sixth grader who got the passenger's seat, beside the driver, and she promised I would get it when I "grew up." There were only two first-graders, and I was one of them, so we were squeezed in wherever we could be - I actually think the bus was illegally overcrowded, because me and the other first grader had to sit on a little ledge that the driver had custom-built into her van, while the older kids had "real seats". The ledge was padded and covered in blue corduroy, but I remember the blue used to leavee stains on my kilts.