In many school systems, including the large urban district that employs my daughter, email policies are dictated by the district. It’s entirely possible that your district requires a cc to be sent every time there’s a parent-teacher email. I know that in our own school district, as well as in my daughter’s, the policy is that teacher emails belong to the district, not the teacher.
If teachers feel they have to “cover their behinds on every transaction,” perhaps there’s a good reason. Just saying.
Email is never a private means of communication. Think of it as writing on a postcard.
That aside, I can think of a couple of reasons for a CC. It may simply be standard policy for a teacher to CC a principal and/or guidance counselor. This may be to protect all parties involved: student, teacher, and parent. A newer teacher may CC the department head. While I value privacy, what I share with a teacher can probably be shared with other school personnel, such as the principal or GC.
Asking them to NOT cc: other school personnel will more likely raise a red flag and have unintended (to you) consequences. The teacher may just add the names to the bcc: box or create an email rule (if address=[your email address], forward to the same school administrators). In other words, the same people will still get the email sent to the same people but now the parent doesn’t know. The cc: is actually a courtesy to the parent.
I know at my job (I’m not a teacher) there are sometimes situations that we are asked to keep our supervisors in the loop on, for various reasons. As it happens I agree with the reasons for the situations in question but even if I didn’t I’d still do as requested because that’s what the boss asked.
If I cc’ed my boss in such a situation and the other person asked me to stop I’d probably just forward instead because I’ve still got to make the bids happy at the end of the day. And if wonder what this person wanted to say that could not be said in front of my boss.
If she copied other people she had her reasons and it may not have been her decision. Asking her not to is creating an annoyance, and possibly raising a red flag.
I am required by my district to cc on certain emails- esp on one that have anything to do with a sped student.