Hi @itadminis,

I believe the visibility of the course settings menu is automatic and controlled by the base role of the user, meaning anyone who has a Teacher or TA based role will see the menu item (I believe designer-based roles also see settings, but we don't use that role at my institution so I can't easily verify).  You can lock down a lot of things inside that menu with the course-role permissions, though it sounds like you already know this.  The only other way to get rid of that menu item would be through custom CSS/JavaScript attached to your account theme, though that is not foolproof and I'm not sure I'd recommend it in this particular case.

Hope this info helps, even if it's not what you were hoping to hear.

-Chris